Poor access to justice in Colombia, says lawyers group

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Poor access to justice in Colombia, says lawyers group
August 29th, 2008
Access to justice, impunity and violation of human rights are widespread in Colombia, charged Lawyers without Borders Thursday following a tour of the country.

“The simple act of practicing law is perceived as a subversive action, because many of our colleagues have suffered harassment and even death threats,” said organization representative and Canadian lawyer Denis L’Anglais, according to Spanish press agency EFE.

Between 1996 and 2006, 125 lawyers were murdered in Colombia, according to the organization. In 2004, 24 lawyers were killed in the southeastern city of Cali — three of them in front of the Palace of Justice — without any charges being brought.

“The minimum requirements of international standards of protection and independence of the legal profession and state law are not met here. Without these minimum requirements there is no rule of law”, said the representative of the Bar of England and Wales, Sara Chandler.



Read more: http://colombiareports.com/2008/08/29/poor-access-to-justice-in-colombia-say-lawyers-group/

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This is the report from the Spanish paper link, Soitu, after being run through the google translation tool:



A caravan of lawyers denounced the inability to access to justice in Colombia
EFE Updated 29-08-2008 03:04 CET

Bogota .- An International Caravan formed by 50 lawyers observed during a visit to Colombia "the inability of lawyers and defenders have access to justice" and the widespread violation of human rights that is lived in the country, presented today in Bogota.


(EFE) The main complaint made by the lawyers was the "impunity" that prevails in prosecuting certain crimes in Colombia, as evidenced by the fact that between 1996 and 2006 a total of 125 lawyers were murdered in the country.
"The simple fact of exercising the right is perceived as a subversive action, because many of our colleagues have suffered harassment and even death threats," warned the Canadian lawyer Denis L'Anglais, representative of Lawyers Without Borders.

"What we found is that due process does not work because there is no possibility of lawyers to have access to justice, and there is no possibility of victims and victims of access to justice", he regretted.

The lawyers visited regions of the Eje Cafetero (centre west), Antioquia (northwest), Valle del Cauca (southwest), Bucaramanga (northeast) and the Caribbean coast (north), places where they met with social organizations, unions, student and victims of the conflict.

They also met with state entities as the prosecution, the judiciary and the prosecution.

The representative of the Bar of England and Wales, Sara Chandler, exhibited before journalists sent death threats by paramilitary wing of the eagle Negras in which list to sixteen lawyers and their families as military targets.

"We are not met the minimum requirements of international standards of protection and independence of the legal profession and state law. Without these minimum requirements there is no rule of law", criticized Chandler.

"The British lawyers who are visiting Colombia are very concerned of reports received on the treatment of lawyers and the violation of human rights," said the lawyer.

He added "we call upon the organs of state responsible for civil liberties and human rights, to take urgent action and remedy this situation."

The main complaint made by the lawyers was the "impunity" that prevails in prosecuting certain crimes in Colombia, as evidenced by the fact that between 1996 and 2006 a total of 125 lawyers were murdered in the country, but in many cases there is any conviction.

As an example cited the case of the city of Cali (southwest), where in 2004 killed 24 lawyers, three of them in front of the Palace of Justice, without any judicial pronouncement.

For its part, Peter Burbridge, a lawyer and professor at the University of Westminster, insisted that "not only human rights defenders but the whole profession is threatened when his client is considered a group considered 'bad,' because lawyers are identified with their clients, are stigmatized and fall in danger. "

The representative of the Association of Free Lawyers Madrid, Endika Zulueta, highlighted the lack of means which affects a country with 4 million refugees, which in regions such as a lawyer Antioquia public takes an average of 700 cases of victims and is unable to provide an effective defence.

In his view, requires the creation of a Colombian Bar Association - there is already a bill - to protect the collective and articulate a proper defence of its members.

http://www.soitu.es/soitu/2008/08/29/info/1219971887_663424.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. "There is no rule of law." That about sums up the situation in Colombia.

“'The minimum requirements of international standards of protection and independence of the legal profession and state law are not met here. Without these minimum requirements there is no rule of law', said the representative of the Bar of England and Wales, Sara Chandler."

Lately, we have heard of 10,000 murders by the Colombia military and closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads, hundreds of them recently, this year, last year--murders of human rights workers, union leaders (dismemberment while alive, torture, their body parts dumped into mass graves), small peasant farmers, peaceful protesters, children whose throats were slit upon suspicion that their parents were leftists, and the intimidation, death threats and murder of journalists.

Now we learn that they are also killing and threatening lawyers. Sara Chandler is right. This is the very bottom line of justice. If your lawyer can't feel safe defending you, there is no rule of law. And we, the U.S. workers and the poor, are paying for this heinous brutality and utter lawlessness to the tune of $6 BILLION in military aid, through Bushite fingers, to the Colombian military, security forces and associated death squads who are committing these crimes, with impunity.

This is one of the biggest insults and outrages committed against us by the billionaire Corpos who are running things. The first insult was Bush as president--a moronic, illiterate beast, who could make jokes and laugh about finding WMDs under the Oval Office rug, while our soldiers and innocent Iraqis were being blown to bits, and while thousands of helpless prisoners were being tortured.

We are supposed to believe that this is us--our "best and brightest," the pinnacle of our political system," this stupid, cruel fascist--or this is what we deserve as leadership--someone who would fit right in, in Colombia's blood-drenched, fascist elite.

You can get demoralized, thinking about it. Is this us? Is this the U.S.A.? Bush is not the first monster we've had as president. LBJ, Nixon and Reagan all qualify--for sheer volume of the slaughter of innocent people. Why Bush seems worse is this very issue--the rule of law. With the others, there was some accountability. LBJ was forced out of office. So was Nixon (whose impeachable crimes were war-connected, if not the war itself). Reagan got investigated, but got away, although some of his henchmen were caught for the illegal war on Nicaragua. (Reagan got off scot free on that, and on the even worse slaughter in Guatemala.) But we still had a sense of possible impeachment, and some accountability--at least investigation and exposure--and of the rule of law still in working order to some extent.

Now we have fascist anarchy--the president completely out of control, an all out blood-drenched looting expedition, and...no one in the political/Corpo establishment seems to give a goddamn. There is no rule of law. Just as in the Bushites' evil spawn, Colombia.

The Bushites aren't shooting defense lawyers yet (that we know of), but they most certainly have bullied, threatened, intimidated, punished, demoted and hampered the military jag lawyers who opposed torture, and the military and civilian lawyers who are trying to defend the tortured, illegally held Gitmo prisoners in kangaroo courts, and they have used the lawyers in the U.S. attorneys' offices for political purposes, and punished and fired those who wouldn't go along. And I imagine that those lawyers--the ones who exposed it, especially--have been looking over their shoulders and avoiding dark alleys and small airplanes.

The U.S.A. is Colombia, in many ways, under the Bush junta. There is no rule of law.