Acuerdo de paz con las FARC y proceso de justicia transicional en Colombia: Derechos a la verdad y a la justicia

Abstract

This article addresses the contents and results of the transitional justice process agreed with the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), to determine whether it satisfies the rights to truth and justice, and to what extent it does so. For this purpose, the origins of the conflict are studied, and other experiences of transitional justice are analyzed, seeking to establish the nature of the Colombian process and how it differs from previous experiences, based on comparative legal research that contrasts a diverse array of institutions and legal frameworks. The study determined that the Colombian case largely satisfies the rights to justice and truth, and is closer to models based on memory and retribution than to those based on forgiveness and forgetting, taking into consideration its strong emphasis on the creation of a truth commission, the conditioning of alternative sanctions on confessions, the absence of general amnesties and the effective restriction of freedom for serious crimes. This research contributes to the understanding of the armed conflict and the transitional justice model applied in Colombia, which resulted after the peace process negotiated with the FARC. The Colombian case can be a model for other transitional justice processes that have arisen in the context of active conflicts, through moderate retribution mechanisms based on the imposition of alternative sanctions, as long as they serve to ensure the guarantee of the right to truth, and the possibility of applying ordinary sanctions is preserved when said guarantee is not satisfied.