Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jun 1999
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 1999 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/

SECRETIVE COLOMBIAN COURTS SURVIVE PROTESTS OVER RIGHTS

BOGOTA -- For a decade, terrorism and drug trafficking cases in Colombia
have routinely been sent to special tribunals that allow judges, prosecutors
and witnesses to remain anonymous.

Now, despite complaints by the United Nations and human rights groups that
such practices violate international law and should be abolished, the
Colombian Government is moving to extend the life and scope of these
so-called "faceless courts."

The controversial system had been scheduled to expire on June 30.  But new
legislation, approved by the Colombian Congress last week and about to be
signed by President Andres Pastrana, renews the faceless courts for another
eight years and modifies, but does not eliminate, many of the procedures
that have been most criticized as denials of fundamental rights.

Beginning July 1, the identities of judges in terrorism and drug cases will
no longer be kept secret from lawyers and defendants. But some prosecutors
and witnesses will still be granted anonymity and the law will continue to
permit the Government to detain suspects for up to a year while the cases
against them are prepared.

Like the old law, the new one infringes on citizens' rights to due process,
an effective defense, a fair and speedy public trial and the presumption of
innocence, according to an analysis published by the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights.

"No other place in the world has something quite like this system," said
Anders Kompass, director of the United Nations office here. "It does not
correspond to international norms."

But the Colombian Government maintains that the faceless courts are the only
way to deal with the twin plagues of terrorism and drug trafficking that
have afflicted this country of 40 million people for decades. Otherwise,
officials say, judges, prosecutors and witnesses are likely to be killed by
the criminal gangs and guerrilla and paramilitary groups whose offenses are
currently prosecuted in the parallel, anonymous system.

"We are in a state not of absolute normality but of atrocious violence and
massacres, and so normal procedures are insufficient," the Minister of the
Interior, Nestor-Humberto Martinez, said in an interview this week. "That
means we have to find an equilibrium between the rights of the accused and
those of the entire society, which is the real victim of that violence."

Martinez also argued that the secrecy of the faceless courts is similar to
some of the procedures being used in international tribunals to prosecute
war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. "We are maintaining and
respecting international standards and principles, and fundamental rights
are being protected," he said.

Other officials have reacted angrily to Kompass' statement that Colombia had
promised in writing to abolish the courts, contending that he has interfered
in the country's internal affairs.

"Kompass' assessment constitutes a prejudgment that in the opinion of the
Government is unacceptable," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Guillermo
Fernandez de Soto, who also criticized United Nations declarations on the
subject as "inappropriate and imprudent."

But even within the Colombian Government the issue has generated sharp
divisions. After it became clear last month that Pastrana did not intend to
abolish the faceless courts, Minister of Justice Parmenio Cuellar resigned
in protest and his portfolio was absorbed into the Ministry of the Interior.

"Colombia cannot indefinitely withstand the coexistence of exceptional
justice parallel to the ordinary system," Cuellar wrote in his letter of
resignation, copies of which were made public. It is the obligation of the
state, he added, to guarantee a legal system that "does not resort to the
discarding of procedural guarantees or the disregard of universal
principles."

The measure has also been widely condemned by human rights groups here and
abroad.

Indeed, the only significant foreign approval has come from the Clinton
Administration, whose policy here, other diplomats maintain, is driven
primarily by its desire to cut the flow of drugs to the United States.

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