Prosecutor's Office requests the JEP to extend the deadline for reporting victims

The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation reported on Monday, March 28, that it requested the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) to “exceptionally extend the period established for interested organizations to submit reports of victims to that judiciary”.

It is worth mentioning that this deadline expired on March 21 and the request was made, according to the Public Ministry, with the “purpose of ensuring their effective participation before the jurisdiction, as well as the principle of equality”.

The Attorney General's Office also raised the foregoing, “bearing in mind that organizations have expressed difficulties in complying with the established term, especially in the territories where the conflict persists”.

It may interest you: Iván Duque and Claudia López will meet in a Security Council after attack in CAI in Ciudad Bolivar

In the same way, he assured that causes such as:

-Lack of security guarantees for those involved in the preparation of reports.

-Difficulties in collecting and processing information as a result of public order conditions in their regions.

The body also noted that these reports are key inputs for ensuring that macro-cases identify the most serious and representative conduct committed during the armed conflict. For this reason, he said that the aim is to “comply with international obligations and to victims and Colombian society to investigate, prosecute and punish the most serious crimes for their non-repetition.”

It should be said that in its communication, the Office of the Procurator acknowledged the efforts of the JEP to systematize the reports submitted, as well as the fact that it granted a first extension for the submission of the reports, which in principle expired on 12 July 2021 and lasted until 21 March 2022.

Even so, he pointed out:

In another recent statement by the Public Prosecutor's Office, it stated that it made a request for the new macro-cases opened by the JEP to be treated “in a comprehensive and non-exclusive manner, especially in those territories where there are no safe conditions for victims”.

“A large part of the territories where there are distant victims have not had enough opportunity to recognize this project, a situation that is a clear indicator that the guarantee of non-repetition provided for in the Peace Agreement has not reached those territories,” said the delegate procurator with coordination functions before the JEP, Jairo Acosta Aristizábal.

Similarly, during the intervention he made in one of the last hearings of victim observations organized by the JEP in different departments of the country, Acosta Aristizábal specified that “there can be no ignorance or exclusion of the conditions of the victims of the armed conflict, insofar as any delay or delay may involve re-victimization and action with harm”.

KEEP READING: