The Legal Fiction of the Right to Defense in the Colombian Criminal Justice System

This is the story of Omar, a man convicted of murder and sentenced to seventeen years in prison. Despite appearances, this is also the story of a criminal justice system that fails to effectively guarantee the fundamental rights of the defendant. Omar's case is not unique, but a telling example of the systematic failure of the Colombian criminal justice, which is not fit for the purpose of protecting the constitutional rights to access to justice and to defense. Through the account of Omar's case, here Iturralde discusses the legal fiction of the right to access to justice and to defense in the Colombian criminal justice system, pinpointing its features and especially its systematic shortcomings, despite legal guarantees and recent legal reforms. He will also try to make sense of why this is the case and how it is not a peculiarity of the Colombian criminal justice, but rather a worrying trend that affects different liberal democracies from the global north and south.