Peace and Justice law takes effect

Four months after the constitutional court upheld the Peace and Justice Law, throwing out the provisions that were the most advantageous for members of armed groups who have committed crimes [IJT-48], the Colombian government enacted the implementing decree for this law on September 29. There was great concern over the content of this decree. A preliminary version, which had been posted on the Internet a month earlier, made no mention of some of the key corrections required by the country's highest judges. However, the official decree integrates most of the objectives formulated by the Constitutional Court. It states that paramilitary soldiers cannot be considered to be political criminals; mandates that any confessions they make be "complete and true"; says they will have to pay reparations from both their legal and illegal goods; and upholds the right of victims to participate and intervene in every stage of the process. Thus, the publication of the implementing decree begins the judicial phase of dissolving paramilitary groups, which was negotiated with the government back in 2003. 5,105 paramilitaries, of whom 2,415 are already in prison, are expected to be tried in the framework of a law that guarantees sentences of only 5 to 8 years in prison. The majority of the paramilitary leaders have agreed to this process, while ten of them have announced that they do not. The first "appeals to victims" were published on September 30 against three paramilitary leaders including Salvatore Mancuso, former head of all the self-defense groups in the north of the country. The names and faces of paramilitaries who are expected to stand trial will be published in daily newspapers throughout the country and on the Internet. Anyone who suffered physically, psychologically or materially from the acts of these men, either individually or collectively is invited to exercise his or her right to reparation, explain these legal "advertisements."