BY: Jaime Arrubla Paucar
Of course, that peace among Colombians is an essential purpose of the State, expressly indicated in the second article of our Constitution when it warns of the duty “to ensure peaceful coexistence and the validity of a just order”. Then, article 22 concludes by stating: “peace is a right and a mandatory duty”. Therefore, it cannot be strange or surprising that the purpose of the Government is to seek total peace among all Colombians. It is a fundamental purpose that all governments must pursue, regardless of their ideology.
The difference lies in the methods and procedures that are advanced to achieve peace. In principle we would say that this fundamental purpose of our State must be sought within the framework of the Constitution and the Law, as the Rule of Law and democratic Republic that we are.
As our hectic society currently presents several different conflict scenarios that compromise the peaceful life of Colombians, it is necessary to establish and understand the differences that each one has to achieve this fundamental purpose. It will be one thing to seek peace with groups up in arms, which still retain a diffuse political connotation, for which there is a whole constitutional and legal framework, as well as experience from previous peace processes, such as the ELN, the dissidents of the FARC, among others. Here we find ourselves with a recently renewed legal framework, by law 2272 of 2022, which in its 5th article allows the appointment of spokespersons for peace and the suspension of arrest warrants can be requested, so that those designated can participate in the dialogues and in the negotiating tables. The suspension of the arrest warrants does not mean the end of the criminal proceedings, nor the extinction of the criminal action against the defendants. In the processes carried out in the past with the FARC, as a result of the arrangements, an amnesty was reached to seek said purposes, because they were political crimes.
But if it is about seeking peace with criminal groups, without political connotation, that are linked to drug trafficking and another series of common crimes; The path cannot be that of a peace process; a submission policy is required; as in the past it was done with the mafia; surely giving some prerogatives, which cannot be pardon or amnesty, since these are not political crimes and the Constitution does not allow it.
It seems that they wanted to put everyone in the same bag; the correct words are not even used, surely for political purposes; there is talk of acceptance instead of submission. Regardless of the expressions that are used, the reality is that legally, the paths have to be different and by making the distinction, we would save time and unnecessary discussions, such as those that have occurred between the executive and the Prosecutor’s Office, avoiding a dangerous and perverse, which clearly contravenes the Constitution.