interesting about this reform is the fact that there is an agreement between domestic
institutions and institutions of global governance. In the past the American government had
promoted a transformation of Colombian legal system in order to improve its performance
in the war on drugs. This reform was made only through a transformation in some aspects
of the CJS but it was never transformed as a whole. At the same time, criminal law has
remained untouched from the American design. Criminal law, so far, has kept the design
elaborated in Europe and based on the idea of rights and liberal reform.
But this new reform is the first that embarks in one transformation of the CJS promote
from the World Bank and the first one that unties the Procedural Code from the Penal
Code. This has led to a tension between liberalism and efficiency. In fact, from the
European discourse there is the need to protect people in their rights in the criminal justice
system. The idea of efficiency above rights remains anathema to the idea of criminal law.
But this is precisely what the new reform is promoting. It is pointing out the need to have a
transparent legal system and one where rights are not obstacles to the efficiency of the
system and to the well being of the market. The new reform is in fact the establishment of
neoliberal efficiency.
From the side of criminal law, rights are protected, and on the side of procedural law,
efficiency is promoted. If we see the institutions involved in this transformation we will be
able to understand the reasons of this reform. Criminal Law has traditionally been the job
of lawyers educated in Europe. It has been part of a process of modernity and it has been
disconnected from the project of development, given the fact that transformations were
made at other levels. Domestic institutions, like the Ministry of Justice and the Universidad
Externado de Colombia, where the places and agents of reforms. The reforms they
promoted were auxiliary elements to promote capitalism, with the exception of the
constitution of liberal subjects in the case of indigenous peoples. Apart from this task,
criminal law has been independent from the project of development.
However, due to the war on drugs, since the 1970s the American government has been
trying to transform the structure of the CJS. Until 2005 they were unable to do it. In 1979
there was an attempt, in the first attack of neoliberalism in Colombia and in the middle of
authoritarian rule, but the Supreme Court found the reform to be against the Constitution.
56
Luigi Ferrajoli. Derecho y Razon. (Madrid: Trotta, 1997).
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Convention