On 18 November 2016, the report of the fifth Caravana de Juristas mission to Colombia was published. Lawyers for Lawyers joined the mission for the fifth time. In August 2016, Wout Albers and Marit Balkema visited Colombia with the Caravana. The mission consisted of lawyers, prosecutors and judges from 12 different countries and took place at the request of endangered Colombian lawyers.
Despite the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the FARC, the threats against lawyers are increasing, especially against human rights lawyers who defend the rights of the victims of the armed conflict in remote areas. In the first six months of 2016, 35 human rights defenders were assassinated in Colombia. The violence also targets more and more often relatives of lawyers, judges and public prosecutors. Because of the great personal risk, many lawyers refrain from working in the field of human rights. This seriously impedes access to justice for citizens.
The Report of the mission highlights the lack of political will to investigate crimes perpetrated by paramilitaries and the military. Paramilitaries remain active in Colombia yet, as the report finds, in the majority of cases of crimes the State had not carried out an effective investigation. In prosecutions against the Colombian army and police, there has been limited progress in some of the most high-profile cases. These levels of judicial neglect threaten a peace process that has a strong focus on the issue of impunity.
The report contains concrete recommendations to the Colombian authorities to improve the situation of lawyers, public prosecutors and judges. In 2018, the next Caravana de Juristas will leave to Colombia to assess how the situation has developed by then.
