'FACELESS' JUSTICE IN DRUG WAR FACES SCRUTINY IN COLOMBIA
by David Aquila Lawrence, Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright (c) 1997, The Christian Science Publishing Society
The Christian Science Monitor March 25, 1997 INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 1

On Aug. 16, 1989, Superior Court Justice Carlos Valencia
Garcia became a murder statistic. Moments after delivering
a fiery speech implicating drug trafficker Pablo Escobar in
a recent killing, Justice Valencia stepped into Bogota's
streets and was gunned down by assassins. In 1989 alone,
such incidents took the lives of 48 judges, prosecutors,
and lawyers. As a result, Colombia's public servants were
desperate for protection. To shield the judges and
attorneys fighting the drug war, the Colombian Congress
created "faceless courts." This allowed judges and
witnesses to remain unseen by defendants in cases of
drugtrafficking, rebellion, and terrorism. While members
of Colombia's overworked judiciary stand by the system,
human rights groups say that it hurts far more that it
helps. "Critics say we've given the judiciary too much
power. But to fight the super criminals we have in
Colombia, we need superjudges," says one such "faceless"
prosecutor in Cali. Attention was recently drawn to the
Colombian system when an anonymous judge in Cali sentenced
the leaders of the Cali cartel, Miguel and Gilberto
Rodriguez Orejuela, to only 10 and 12 years in prison
respectively. "It wouldn't make sense anywhere else in the
world," says Ernesto Carrazco, national director of
Colombia's public prosecutors. "But the level of violence
in Colombia justified that we make some exceptions." He
admits that the system has been overused, but still sees it
as necessary. "About 80 percent of the cases that are tried
under the system don't merit the use of anonymous judges
and witnesses," he says. "But it does at least provide a
minimum guarantee of safety for the judges." Although
anonymity may not protect a judge completely, it greatly
raises the cost of reaching him, Mr. Carrazco says. But
human rights groups say the system denies a fair trial and
is often misused. "It's a matter of common sense. If you
don't know who the judge is, how can you know he's
impartial?" asks Carlos Rodriguez Mejia, a lawyer with the
Colombian Commission of Jurists, a Bogota human rights
group. The law has been terribly abused, especially when
the charge is terrorism, Mr. Rodriguez says, adding that
many cases of peaceful protest or civil disobedience result
in charges of terrorism before anonymous witnesses and
judges. Rodriguez also cites international treaties on the
right to due process, which he says the "faceless" system
violates. Furthermore, he challenges the effectiveness of
the law to complete its stated purpose. "It's a lie.
Everyone knows who the judges are," he says. The number of
judges murdered peaked during Escobar's terrorist attacks
in 1989 and 1990 and fell sharply after the drug lord was
killed in 1993, unrelated to the advent of the faceless
system, he says. The recent example of the Cali cartel
leaders raises the question of whether oneway mirrors and
voice distortion are enough against criminals who have
tremendous power and influence. The anonymous judge who
sentenced the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers didn't even apply
the maximum sentence to two of the biggest criminals in
Colombian history. The light sentences have prompted wide
speculation that the judge was bought or threatened by the
cartel. Robin Kirk of Washingtonbased Human Rights
Watch/Americas recalls a more tragic failure of the
protective measures. In August 1991, anonymous judge No.
103 fled into exile after attempting to investigate the
massacre of farmers in the wartorn region of Uraba. But
leaving wasn't enough. Her father was murdered after she
left the country, as was the judge who succeeded her on the
case. Meanwhile, regular Colombians get a raw deal, Ms.
Kirk says. Powerful criminals can circumvent the system,
and others use political connections to avoid being judged
by a faceless court. But peasants living in guerrilla war
zones often find themselves in court, accused of terrorism
by witnesses they never see. The 1991 Constitution
provided that faceless courts would be phased out by 1999,
but the violence that inspired the system hasn't abated.
"The ideal would be to abandon the system, but with the
guerrillas, the paramilitaries, and such a weak state, in
1999 we may be in a worse situation," prosecutor Carrazco
says. Proponents and critics of faceless courts agree that
the practice will probably be overhauled when a member of
Colombia's political class the same figures who demanded
the system is subjected to a faceless court. That time
may be soon with continuing investigations into how Cali
cartel money found its way into President Ernesto Samper
Pizano's election campaign in 1993 and '94.