"We must wait for the investigations to take their course, in criminal law everything must be demonstrated, but what cannot happen to us is that people stay with the headlines and make hypotheses a priori"

 

The lawyer Franklyn Fajardo Sandoval, professor and director of the Department of Criminal Law, who is part of the research group of Human Rights and Medical Law of the University of Cauca, explains what is the legitimate defense and the other requirements that the Criminal Code brings Colombian, this to address the dramatic episode of the doctor who last night killed three individuals on a pedestrian bridge in northern Bogotá.

 

The first thing that must be taken into account, is to observe a great care in determining the requirements demanded by the repressive code in what has to do with the figure, which for the case of the doctor in Bogotá has become such a media case, the prosecutor must demonstrate with sufficient elements so that the legitimate defense is recognized, and that consequently the person is sheltered under the so-called cause of absence of responsibility.

 

And is that the legitimate defense is not a novel figure in criminal law, much less peaceful. It is certainly controversial in the legal world. In essence, it means that a person who with logical reasons assumes that his life, that of his family or even that of a third party is at risk, has the prerogative to defend and defend his own, and that if in that last defense the aggressor will not be prosecuted criminally, as indicated in precedence.

 

"We must wait for investigations to take their course, in criminal law everything must be demonstrated, but what cannot happen to us is that people stay with the headlines and make hypotheses a priori," says the Jurist, who said that the reaction of the Doctor who shot in Bogotá and caused the death of these three people could be proportional, and may even be a beneficiary of the absence of responsibility, although it is premature to anticipate and wait for the investigations of the case, which will throw elements Evidence materials with scientific foundations that corroborate the various hypotheses that are currently being studied.

 

“The call I make from the academy is that life is a precious asset, and it is stipulated that it can be defended; but this argument cannot be used so that in cases that are not justified, justice is allowed to take its own hand. What cannot be allowed are lynching, a priori analyzes that do nothing other than undermine credibility in the administration of justice,”said the professor.

 

He added that first; a situation of real threat to life must be configured. Second, it is a right that arises briefly at the moment of risk: if after the aggression the victim of the unjust attack persecutes and after several hours kills the aggressor, he must be prosecuted for homicide, since what was there was justice by his own hand. That is why what we should expect is that justice acts and determines what happened in this situation that has generated great controversy at the national level.

 

The man who surrendered to the authorities and was released, but pending a criminal proceeding that will determine whether, as everything indicates, defending his life ended up taking the lives of three suspected criminals.

 

The investigations will say the final word on how the events occurred, there would be no justification that whoever had to endure the trance of killing in self-defense will also end up in jail. But what cannot happen is that in an unqualified way, without attachment to the tests, it is celebrated, as many are doing (just look at their social networks), an episode that portrays several of our failures as a country.

 

“We cannot be mistaken, because there is a very thin line in society and it can take us to the“ Far West ”and become criminals: the eagerness to arm and protect ourselves and justice on our own. This case shows us everything we need to achieve. “The State must have a monopoly on arms and justice in cases such as the one studied, to preserve our guarantees and the quality of the State of Constitutional Law must continue in this way. The other thing is to return to barbarism”, said Professor Franklyn Fajardo Sandoval.

 

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