Por:
Norberto Hernández Jiménez
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Fecha:
2020
This paper analyzes the tension between the preventive detention and the presumption of innocence in Colombia. The analysis focuses on decisions taken by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Circumstances like (i) the excessive use of preventive detention, (ii) the time accused people spent in jail, and (iii) the fact that convicts and accused people share the same prison conditions represent key challenges for the local justice administration in relation to parameters defined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This context has been described by the Constitutional Court through the figure of the unconstitutional state of affairs in prisons; nevertheless, this Court has validated the preventive detention as an assurance measure. Although judges do not ignore the problematic, most of the judges interviewed for this study defend the
imposition of a preventive custody because they consider that this measure does not affect the guarantees related to the presumption of innocence.