Court closed investigation against judge who said 'Chimoltrufia' to a lawyer

Is disrespect an act worthy of a criminal complaint? , that has been analyzed since 2019 in the Superior Court of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, where a complaint was filed against the first criminal judge of the Duitama circuit (Boyacá), Álvaro Rincón Monroy, for the crime of abuse of authority with arbitrary act. The complainant was lawyer Mercy Yolima Espinel, who pointed out that in the middle of a hearing, the headdress referred to her as “Chimoltrufia” and said other offensive words to her.

The case reached the Supreme Court and, in the last few hours, the Supreme Court ruled that the investigation against the judge should be closed, since there were no merits to continue.

The events took place on January 16, 2019, in the middle of a hearing in which it was decided on the criminal proceedings against Oscar Iván Becerra Díaz for the crime of fraud to court resolution. The lawyer intervened at a time when she had not been given the floor to raise an objection to the intervention of witnesses in the case.

The judge's reaction to the lawyer's claim was quite strong, as evidenced by the video that the woman gave as evidence in her complaint. He told Espinel to respect the hearing and the witnesses summoned to the oral trial, he also added to “don't screw” and called it “Chimoltrufia”.

“Take the floor when it has been given and granted, not to interrupt, taking the floor when no one has granted it to you,” said the headdress in the middle of that audience. The disrespectful words appeared when the judge noticed that the lawyer made a gesture for her wake-up call.

Noting this, the judge again took it against the lawyer and reminded her that she was talking to “the judge, whether he likes it or not, is that here he comes to practice as a jurist. .. or else we would bring the lady from chicha down there and let her behave as she wants to behave.” This caused the inconvenience of the lawyer, who reported the incident to the Santa Rosa de Viterbo High Court, where a preliminary investigation was opened to Judge Rincón.

In August 2019, the second delegate prosecutor of the Tribunal - who was in charge of the case - asked for the preclusion of the case, noting the “atypical nature of the alleged event”. However, at that time the Court did not accept the preclusion because it considered that, in fact, the judge had exceeded the limits of sanity and respect.

“By assimilating the behavior of the lawyer to that of the 'Chimoltrufia' or that of the person who sells chicha, the court concludes that the judge moved away from protocol and decorum... he acted capriciously and the word 'screw' did not use it in a pejorative way but in its chastizo and boyacense use,” the Court replied.

However, the prosecutor appealed the decision and insisted that the judge's position was justified, this because it was the lawyer who committed a “repetitive and untimely intervention”. In addition, he told Espinel of first disrespecting the witnesses and of having ignored the parameters for carrying out his intervention; “the formulation of untimely objections, the lack of volitional continence and action against the judge's order,” the prosecutor said.

With this the case reached the Supreme Court, where it went against the court's decision to investigate the judge, since they pointed out that the grounds were for a disciplinary rather than a criminal case. The Court insisted that the duty of judges is “to avoid delaying maneuvers and acts that are manifestly inconducive, impertinent or superfluous by rejecting them”.

The Court insisted that the duty of judges is “to avoid delaying maneuvers and acts that are manifestly inconducive, impertinent or superfluous by rejecting them.” The Court insisted that the duty of judges is “to avoid delaying maneuvers and acts that are manifestly inconsistent, impertinent or superfluous by rejection of them”.

They emphasized, in any case, that the way in which the headdress caught the lawyer's attention “is not the most appropriate, convenient or prudent... Recourse to characters who are fictionalized or from everyday life is not an arbitrary and unfair act that is appropriate to the type of criminal offense”.

KEEP READING: