Colombia’s prosecution will introduce draft legislation that seeks to speed up legal proceedings against former members of paramilitary organization AUC who demobilized two decades ago already.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, bottlenecks in the transitional Justice and Peace system that was adopted in 2005 have prevented the effective trying of more than 3,000 former paramilitaries.

Others continue in prison despite having served eight years in prison, the maximum sentence for former paramilitaries who cooperate with justice.

Last but not least, some 860 properties that were either surrendered or confiscated have yet to be made available for the reparation of victims.

Former paramilitaries and their victim agree with the initiative that seeks to overcome the bottlenecks in the transitional justice process, according to the prosecution.

The victims are waiting for more sentences to establish the truth of what happened, to impose the deserved punishment, to recognize the damages suffered and to order the forfeiture of the assets, and the postulates hope that their situation will be definitively and fully resolved, so that they can be reintegrated into society as full citizens.

Prosecutor General’s Office

In order to speed up the process, the prosecution proposed to change Law 975 of 2005, which regulated the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of the paramilitaries.

Specifically, the prosecution proposed to replace the indictment hearings with written indictments that are signed off by the suspects, their victims and the Inspector General’s Office.

This would imply that suspected war criminals that have still not been processed to appear in court to accept the charges and be tried immediately.

This change wouldn’t change suspects’ obligations to voluntarily confess crimes and contribute to the court’s efforts to reconstruct the truth surrounding the crimes committed by the AUC and its associates.

The prosecution also proposed to disconnect asset forfeiture procedures from the main trial to prevent delays caused by the appeals of third parties who claim to have acquired paramilitary assets in good faith.

These proceedings have often halted trials and kept demobilized former paramilitaries in prison for more than the eight years they were supposed to serve.

After its inception in 2005, the Justice and Peace Process sought to try more than 30,000 alleged members of the AUC and gather evidence on the paramilitaries’ associates in the private sector, the military and politics.