Despite the fact that the Senate gave the go-ahead for the processes to continue to be carried out digitally, the House of Representatives approved that criminal justice return to face-to-face from July 1
Reference. In the first debate, Congress approved the linking of Colombia to the Escazú agreement. Photo: file
The plenary session of the Colombian Senate approved this May 31 the reform to virtual justice. With this measure, the country is one step closer to making virtual criminal justice a reality. This, according to the project’s speakers, would help decongest and speed up judicial processes, make user attention more flexible so that they can file, process or have hearings by digital means so that they do not have to physically travel to the courts.
Despite the fact that the Senate gave the go-ahead for the processes to continue to be carried out digitally, the House of Representatives approved, 97 votes in favor and 20 against, that criminal justice return to face-to-face from on July 1.
It must be remembered that virtual justice was endorsed through decree 806 of 2020, within the framework of the pandemic and the measures to prevent the spread of covid-19. To maintain this modality that has improved the service, several initiatives of parliamentary origin, of Government and the judicial branch were presented before Congress. The latter did not include virtual justice for criminal cases.
For various sectors of the judicial branch, this project is essential. For example, for Fernando Castillo, magistrate of the Labor Chamber of the Supreme Court, “The initiative is very important to achieve the continuity of all the processes that were generated in the pandemic, but it helps the judicial branch to update”.
For its part , the criminal judges of Bogotá made a call to the Congress of the Republic since last May 2 so that, in all specialties and jurisdictions, virtuality and the use of ICT prevail.
“More sentences have been handed down, there are more hearings that are held, and the saving in economic resources of both the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the other entities involved in the criminal process is indisputable, to which is added the consensus in the users of the system around the improvement in access to the service thanks to the use of teleconferences and data messages”, they pointed out through the statement.
In the Senate of the Republic alone there are three initiatives to permanently establish Decree 806 of 2020. These are promoted by Germán Varón, María Fernanda Cabal and Angélica Lozano.
The On June 3, the validity of that decree expires, so it is expected that if it is repealed, it would be necessary to overturn the presence of judicial processes, which could affect progress. In addition, because currently, according to criminal judges in Bogotá, ICT tools have helped improve the quality of the system and get closer to the citizen.
Senator Lozano maintains that the Constitutional Court went from an annual productivity rate of 89% before virtuality, to 110%; the Supreme Court of Justice went from 85 to 87%; the Council of State went from an annual productivity of 83 to 120% and the Superior Council of the Judiciary went from 84 to 97% in its productivity rate.
Furthermore, lawyer Francisco Bernate assured in that event that the effective number of hearings in the ordinary jurisdiction, in criminal specialty, increased by 250% during virtuality, because it allowed to exceed the availability of physical rooms, in addition, that hearings were held in different parts of the country.
The judges assure that they are advancing the process of digitizing judicial files as ordered by the Superior Council of the Judiciary, which will allow for the modernization of the system and improve the use of information technologies.