Criminal law blog in Colombia

Colombian law requires a reasonable inference for pre-trial detention and never defines it. What the courts say, why there is no figure and how to review it.

The hearing does not decide guilt. What the prosecution must establish, why the seriousness of the offence is not enough, and what evidence of local ties actually helps.

You have been arrested, and that is not yet the case. What you can do and what your family can do in the thirty-six hours that run until the legalisation hearing.

The law requires knowledge beyond all doubt and does not say how much evidence that is. What is lost in that gap and what can be demanded while the law stays silent.

Reasonable doubt is not a favourable impression: it is the alternative hypothesis the prosecution failed to refute, and someone has to put it into the proceeding. Add to that the fact that the judge keeps the first account they hear.

“Theory of the case” and “opening statement” are used as synonyms, and they are not. One governs the whole proceeding; the other is an act exhausted in a single hearing. Whoever confuses them arrives at trial without a theory.

You publish an account of gender-based violence and the person named answers with a complaint for insult. Directive 001 of 2026 changed what the prosecutor must look at, and that counter-complaint may end up opening the investigation of the violence.

What a summons to questioning as a suspect means, what article 282 provides, how to prepare for the appointment and what is recorded of whatever you say.

Investigating without a lawyer can leave you with useless information, a criminal offence and damaged evidence. What Colombian law allows when engaging a private investigator.

Not every investment that loses value is an offence, but pyramid schemes and unlawful deposit-taking are. How to tell them apart and what a victim can do.

Not every forceful police action is an abuse. When a procedure crosses into unlawfulness, and the four routes a victim can take at the same time.

Sometimes a divorce hides offences: concealed assets, documentary falsehoods or false accusations. When that happens, and why it calls for a dual view.

Not knowing who entered the house does not close off the routes of response. Three fronts of redress that do not depend on identifying the perpetrator.

Negligence offences do not punish intent. The question is whether you took the care that activity required, and whether the harm came out of precisely that lack of care.

When a contested inheritance produces forged documents, hidden assets or procedural fraud, the dispute stops being merely civil.

If your name, identity card or photos were used to open accounts, obtain credit or deceive others: whom to report it to, which offences are committed and what to expect.

You searched your name and it came up, or you were refused something over an old case. Deleting it is almost never possible: what you can ask for, and in which register.

You have been summoned as a witness, or you witnessed something: the trial is someone else’s, but the risk is yours. What it costs not to know before you give evidence.

In Colombia there is no single criminal procedure. Here are the two most cases go through: the rule that assigns yours, and the time limits of each stage.

The victim is not a spectator of the proceeding: you have rights from day one, and none of them switches itself on. What they are, and the act that exercises each.

The defence does not begin with the charge. Which facts to maintain, what outcome to seek and what evidence to look for while the prosecution is still investigating.