Submission law: criminals would pay 6 to 8 years in jail

The Ministers of Justice and Law, Néstor Iván Osuna Patiño, and of the Interior, Alfonso Prada Gil, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, filed before the Senate the Bill to submit to criminal gangs

“This bill contains a generous offer by the Colombian State to these high-impact criminal structures, so that if they turn themselves in, they confess their crimes, hand over their assets, hand over information about their criminal patterns and make reparations to the victims, the State gives them a more benign penal treatment than the ordinary, all with the purpose that we can live in complete peace”, the Minister of Justice pointed out when specifying that the initiative is designed for high-impact criminal structures that do not have a political vocation.

According to the Government, the initiative seeks to dismantle organized armed structures of high-impact crime, creates mechanisms to be subject to justice through the application of investigation and prosecution procedures, contributes to the satisfaction of the rights of victims from the approaches differentials and guarantees non-repetition.

The Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada Gil, specified that with the project “there is a subjection, not a peace negotiation. Here we are facing organizations, crime structures that operate in the illegal economy, that is why there is no dialogue or negotiation. There is no kind of dialogue or any kind of prebend to drug trafficking. Here is simply a law that we present for consideration by Congress so that the conditions in which a restraint will operate are defined there, with a procedure that has a first part of dialogue and conversation, which comes from the design that was made in the Law 2272 and the second phase continues, which is defined here as a criminal procedure under the coordination of the Prosecutor’s Office, which will end with the decision of the corresponding criminal judges”.

For his part, the president of the House of Representatives, David Racero, stressed that “this project does not recognize political status in the very procedure of the mechanisms of subjection to ordinary justice”, and stressed that it complements other dialogue processes, such as the one that advance with the ELN in the commitment of the #GobiernoDelCambio to achieve Total Peace.

The president of the Senate Peace Commission, Iván Cepeda Castro, who together with congressmen Alirio Uribe and Ariel Ávila supported the construction of the project, specified that it “does not provide any kind of impunity, as you can see through the penalties that are offered for consideration by Congress, but at the same time leaves room for these groups to submit to justice. It clearly establishes the difference between the political groups with which it negotiates, such as the ELN, and the structures that are linked to drug trafficking and illegal mining as the only form of action.“.

High impact criminal structures

Organized armed structures of high impact crime are considered:

– Criminal organizations made up of a plural number of people;

– That they are organized in a hierarchical structure and/or in a network;

– That they are dedicated to the permanent or continuous execution of punishable conducts, among which may be found those typified in the Palermo Convention;

– That they are framed in criminal patterns that include the violent subjugation of the civilian population of the rural and urban territories in which they operate;

– That they perform functions in one or more illegal economies.

Excluded from the application of this bill are rebel armed groups and organizations that have a political nature, with which the Government is carrying out dialogues or peace talks. The benefits in punishability and punishment with a restorative component that the initiative deals with do not constitute political recognition of the organized armed structures of high-impact crime and their members.

The miseries

The bill contemplates that the leaders or leaders of the organized armed structure of high-impact crime be sentenced to an effective deprivation of liberty in a prison of six (6) to eight (8) years, according to the degree of individual responsibility, without the right to home detention, probation, 72-hour leave, or redemption of sentences for work or study; and a period of four (4) years of restorative component with surveillance and monitoring mechanisms, extramural, with participation in restorative justice and reintegration programs.

It also provides that the penalties imposed prior to the subjection to justice to heads or leaders of high-impact criminal structures will be accumulated and will be replaced by the one imposed on them, in accordance with those proposed in the initiative.

The procedure for high-impact crime organized armed structures to submit to this law will have three stages: approach, conversation, and terms of submission; prosecution; and, compliance.

According to the project, the following will be grounds for individual loss of criminal treatment and application of ordinary penalties, enshrined in the Penal Code:

-Return to arms;

-Being sentenced for intentional crimes committed after the signing of the individual act of subjection to justice and guarantees of non-repetition;

-Involvement in some type of illegal economy, in any of its stages of operation;

-Not complying with the obligations to maintain the criminal treatment, nor the verification of the same;

-Not complying, repeatedly and unjustifiably, with the participation in restorative justice and reintegration programs.

In the cases in which the criminal treatment of a member of the structure that is a beneficiary of the principle of opportunity is revoked, the facts and conducts committed by this will be investigated and judged according to the ordinary procedure. The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, ex officio or at the request of the victims, must initiate the incident of non-compliance before the first instance hearing judge.

The list of the organized armed structure of high-impact crime, including those who are deprived of liberty due to their membership, will be delivered by the representatives-spokespersons to the National Government, through the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, that together with the Police Intelligence Directorate of the National Police (DIPOL), the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) and Military Intelligence, will verify and purify the lists and make any exclusions that may apply.

The project contemplates the creation of the Inter-institutional Verification Committee, so that in a term of fifteen (15) days it delivers the final list. A delegate from the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization is part of the committee, who will chair it; of the Ministry of National Defense, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the National Police, the National Army, the National Intelligence Directorate, the National Registry of Civil Status, the Ombudsman’s Office, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, who will be the technical secretary.​​

“In the event that the organized armed structure of high-impact crime includes people who are not members of the criminal organization, both spokespersons and representatives as well as those who pretend to be members, the provisions of this document will not be applied to them.” Law and, consequently, they will lose the benefits of criminal treatment, if they had obtained them. Against them, the Attorney General’s Office will initiate a criminal investigation for the crimes that may arise. Regarding the spokespersons representing the structure, bad faith must be proven for the loss of benefits and the certification of the respective copies,” the initiative states.