Petro-Barbosa meeting: Prosecutor handed over nine objections to president on bid law

In total, there are nine observations that the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa, made known to President Gustavo Petro concerning the bill of submission to justice presented on Wednesday February 15 by the Minister of Justice, Néstor Osuna, and the senators. Ariel Avila and Alirio Uribewho will be the speakers before the Congress of the Republic.

The meeting between the Head of State and the head of the tax control body took place in the afternoon of Monday, February 20, and precisely, the central subject of the discussion was the initiative called by the government national as “dismantling of criminal organizations”.

At the end of said summit, Barbosa announced in a press conference that the observations delivered to the President are related to various technical aspects, which will be discussed in the Criminal Policy Council, group which is made up of him and other officials such as lawyer Margarita Cabello.

In his statement to the media, he mentioned that the first problem has to do with the fact that, according to this initiative, the process of subjugating high-impact criminal structures must be carried out in the prosecutor’s office through the investigation unit, which was created by the final peace agreement of 2016.

For the official, this designation “exceeds his constitutional mandate and therefore it was suggested to the President of the Republic and to the Minister of Justice, with whom (…) we will surely have a conversation tomorrow or Thursday” before the submission of the project before the Criminal Policy Council.

The prosecutor’s second “but” focused on terms, particularly procedural ones. With that, he said they are “very short. It almost seems that the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation will not have much time to corroborate all the facts that are included in the individual and collective acts of subjection that these -criminal- organizations must sign.

Barbosa also said of the third objection that the wording of the charges cannot be limited only to what is determined by those who sign said minutes. At this point, he pointed out that the prosecutor’s office should be the one that verifies the existence of other crimes that are not recognized by the person subject to this law.

“A fourth point relates to the lack of limits on the assets that will be delivered to these people who are part of high-impact criminal organizations,” said the prosecutor. On this, he added that this measure must respect the provisions of article 133 of the Domain Forfeiture Code —Law 1708 of 2014— so that there is compliance in the face of a possible shortcoming regarding the advantages that are granted to the members of these structures.

In this sense, the prosecutor informed that “properties that have already been the subject of a legal action, either by a precautionary measure for the purpose of extinction of domain, or that are already in progress before the judges or SAE, cannot be part of the negotiations”.

In the fifth point, Barbosa stressed that the entity he leads should not approve the lists or verify the fulfillment of the functions, because according to him, these are not functions of the Office of the Prosecutor. At this point, he reiterated that what the body can verify is the existence of other behaviors compared to those mentioned by those who submit to this law.

The next objection addressed to President Petro concerned the application of the opportunity principle. According to the Attorney General of the Nation, this measure can only be granted during the suspension phase. “What does this mean? That when the principle of opportunity is granted, the person receiving it is expected to comply with what is established in restorative justice processes”.

With regard to the seventh recommendation, the head of the tax control body said that victims must be covered by the bill, because according to him, “the reparation regime is not found, their role in the processes ” and even warned of an “indeterminacy” on the repair. The eighth repair was carried out on the Article 46 — “additional decisions” — which would violate the principle of res judicata.

In this regard, he explained that in the articles “they talk about a judge who pronounces a collective sentence, but the article says that if subsequent facts attributable to people who are in the collective sentence appear, the discussion must be reopened to reintroduce this element. in this sentence. He asked, in that order, the hardness with which it will be accomplished sentence.

Finally, Francois Barbosa sostuvo que es imposible aplicar, dentro del principio de oportunidad, la figura de concierto para delinquir agravado, pues de acuerdo con fallos como la sentencia C-936 de 2010 que determinó la imposibilidad de desconocerse las obligaciones que tiene el Estado colombiano para investigar violaciones a human rights.

It should be mentioned that after the concept that will be issued by the Criminal Policy Council, the bill will be presented to Congress. Despite the reservations, Barbosa stressed that the president has shown “openness to discussions on this project”.