Colombia Hearing
EMINENT JURISTS END VISIT TO COLOMBIA
11 February 2006 Bogotá Colombia
 E. Raúl Zaffaroni (Argentina), Robert K. Goldman (United States) and Stefan Trechsel (Switzerland), members of the "Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights", ended their visit to Colombia today. The three experts are part of a group of eight jurists appointed by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) to examine the impact of the fight against terrorism on human rights and the rule of law. The Panel will hold hearings over the next 18 months in all regions of the world.
During a two-day hearing held at the Santo Tomás University in Bogotá, the Panel received many testimonies on the impact of terrorist acts and counter-terrorism measures over the past fifty years in Colombia, including the impact of measures adopted under the democratic security policy in the last three years. Lawyers, prosecutors, human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists, internally displaced people and representatives of Afro-descent and indigenous communities intervened at the hearing. The Panel also received submissions on the Government's justification for the adoption of the measures.
One of the premises of the democratic security policy is that there is no internal armed conflict in Colombia but instead a war against terrorism. The Panel would like to highlight that, although international humanitarian law proscribes terrorism, the fact that terrorist acts are committed during an armed conflict does not alter either the legal status of the hostilities or of the parties involved or the duty of the parties to observe humanitarian law.
At the hearing, the Panel received testimonies that antiterrorist measures declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, including the granting of judicial police powers to the military, continue to be used in practice, resulting in a very high level of arbitrary detention and searches without judicial order.
The Panel expresses concern about the information provided on the Executive's interferences in judicial decisions and its attempts to limit the competence of the Constitutional Court, guardian of the rule of law and of fundamental rights.
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