Criminal
Adversarial code operating under emergency modification
The 2011 Código Procesal Penal is adversarial and oral. Since 2022, however, the régimen de excepción and successive anti-gang statutes have altered detention limits, group liability and juvenile penalties, so the code as written no longer describes practice on its own.
Key rules
- Ordinary rules require a judge to review detention within 72 hours; the emergency regime extends administrative detention to 15 days.
- Gang membership is an autonomous offence carrying long sentences under reforms to the Ley de Proscripción de Maras.
- Mass trials of defendants grouped by gang clique were authorised by 2023 reforms.
- Juvenile penalties were increased and the age of adult treatment lowered for gang offences.
- The Fiscalía General de la República directs investigation; the Procuraduría provides public defence.
Governing law
- Código Penal (Decreto 1030 de 1997)Substantive offences.
- Código Procesal Penal (Decreto 733 de 2008)Adversarial procedure.
- Ley de Proscripción de Maras (Decreto 458 de 2010)Gang proscription, as amended.
In practice
Any advice must start from the currently effective emergency decree rather than the code. Human-rights bodies have documented tens of thousands of detentions without individualised evidence, and access to counsel at the arrest stage is not guaranteed while the regime is in force.