Related Rule
Colombia
Practice Relating to Rule 99. Deprivation of Liberty
Colombia’s Basic Military Manual (1995) provides: “It is prohibited to deprive [the civilian population] of its liberty (sequestration, enforced disappearances).”
Colombia, Derecho Internacional Humanitario – Manual Básico para las Personerías y las Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, 1995, p. 30.
Colombia’s Penal Code (2000) imposes a criminal sanction on anyone who, during an armed conflict, carries out or orders the illegal detention of a protected person.
Colombia, Penal Code, 2000, Article 149.
Colombia’s Criminal Procedure Code (2004) states: “Every person has the right to respect for his or her liberty.”
Colombia, Criminal Procedure Code, 2004, Article 1.
In 2007, in the Constitutional Case No. C-291/07, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated:
Taking into account … the development of customary international humanitarian law applicable in internal armed conflicts, the Constitutional Court notes that the fundamental guarantees stemming from the principle of humanity, some of which have attained ius cogens status, … [include] the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
Colombia, Constitutional Court, Constitutional Case No. C-291/07, Judgment of 25 April 2007, p. 112.
[footnote in original omitted]Colombia’s Criminal Procedure Code (2004) states: “Nobody’s right to personal integrity and liberty may be infringed except by virtue of a written order by a competent judicial authority, established in accordance with legal procedures and for reasons previously established by the law.”
Colombia, Criminal Procedure Code, 2004, Article 2.
Colombia’s Instructors’ Manual (1999) provides: “Persons in preventive detention shall be brought before a judge in the 36 hours following [arrest].”
Colombia, Derechos Humanos & Derecho Internacional Humanitario – Manual de Instrucción de la Guía de Conducta para el Soldado e Infante de Marina, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Oficina de Derechos Humanos, Fuerzas Militares de Colombia, Santafé de Bogotá, 1999, p. 10.
Colombia’s Basic Military Manual (1995) provides:
The work undertaken by persons who cooperate with those who are deprived of their liberty in order to invoke the right to habeas corpus, or who invoke this right directly in their name, finds its legal basis in their status as human rights defenders.
Colombia, Derecho Internacional Humanitario – Manual Básico para las Personerías y las Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, 1995, p. 62.
Colombia’s Law No. 1095 (2006) states:
Habeas Corpus is a fundamental right as well as a constitutional action which protects personal liberty if a person is deprived of his or her liberty in violation of the constitutional or legal guarantees or for a prolonged period of time. This action may only be invoked or initiated once and in deciding this matter the principle pro homine must be applied.
Colombia, Law No. 1095, 2006, Article 1.
