(Un)Protecting Victims’ Rights in the Colombian Criminal Justice Reform of the Early 2000s

This chapter examines the history of the Colombian criminal justice reform of the early 2000s, focusing on the domestic context, key actors and their legal and symbolic capital. This chapter explores how different actors used the idea of victims’ rights in the debates for the 2002 constitutional reform and the 2004 Criminal Procedure Code (2004 CPC). This chapter shows that this reform was based on two pillars: i) the adversarial model, and ii) a broad protection of both defendants’ rights and victims’ rights in the criminal process. The 2002 constitutional reform promised broad protection of victims as active protagonists in criminal proceedings. However, there is a gap between the promises of the 2002 constitutional reform and the role of victims actually established in the 2004 CPC. In this Code, the adversarial model prevailed over the inclusion of victims as protagonists in the criminal process. The 2004 CPC recognizes a charter of victims’ rights, but sets few specific mechanisms to enforce those rights. The 2004 CPC also incorporates principles of restorative justice, but establishes few rules regarding restorative justice programs. This chapter argues that the role and rights of victims in the 2004 CPC was the result of the competition and interplay between different conceptions of victims and victims’ rights. As a result of ensuing disagreements, the 2004 CPC left indeterminate many key elements about victims, defined victims’ rights in vague and ambiguous terms, and involved tensions and contradictions regarding the role and rights of victims.