Presentation

Abstract

The recent legislative debate on military criminal jurisdiction is the subject of today's issue of the Journal. The issue is of transcendence for multiple reasons: It has important implications for international law; the discussion is taking place in a country that is enduring a painful armed conflict tinged by the insurgency, very worrying, of fearsome criminal gangs that have taken over important areas of the territory; in the recent past, the military criminal justice system has been questioned for promoting impunity in this area; Despite the existence of a broad and clear jurisdiction, without constitutional restrictions of any kind, as has been the Colombian tradition since the first Constitution, some regulations - think of the current Military Criminal Code - have curtailed the operation of this mechanism; Finally, in the Colombian judicial practice -by virtue of a simple and unconstitutional Cooperation Agreement between the Ministry of Defense and the Attorney General's Office- the jurisdiction has been ignored to attribute, almost always, the trial of crimes committed by military personnel in active service and on the occasion of the service, to the ordinary Justice, which has not always been the most impartial.