Bill 444.

Summary.

Article 1 states the bill’s purpose as guaranteeing every citizen’s presumption of innocence. To that end, it proposes to regulate the conduct of public servants and limit the information they provide through communications media, documents, digital media, or any kind of platform. The provision addresses information communicated in the exercise of public duties.

Article 2 proposes to add Article 18-A to Law 69 of 2007. The proposed provision would apply to any public servant who, in the exercise of official duties, supplies, facilitates, or transmits information about a person who was investigated and who has not been convicted or held responsible by a final judgment. The conduct described includes providing the information, facilitating its provision, and transmitting it. The article links the sanctions to the public servant’s conduct and to the legal position of the person concerned by the information.

For a first occurrence, proposed Article 18-A sets a fine equal to fifty percent (50%) of the public servant’s monthly salary. For a second occurrence, it provides for suspension from work and salary for one month. For a third occurrence, it provides for dismissal. The provision also preserves the affected person’s right to seek recourse in criminal proceedings concerning the characterization of the conduct as calumny and insult. The text therefore sets out a sequence of sanctions for successive occurrences while retaining the specified avenue of criminal recourse.

Article 3 assigns the imposition of the sanction to each government department. It proposes that the department act on its own initiative or at the request of the person against whom the grievance was committed. To make that request, the affected person must submit a police record or the judgment exempting that person from criminal responsibility. The procedure ties the department’s action to documentation concerning the applicant’s criminal liability.

Article 4 again identifies the addition of Article 18-A to Law 69 of 2007. In naming that law, it refers to the creation of the Judicial Investigation Directorate (Dirección de Investigación Judicial) within the National Police (Policía Nacional) and the assignment of criminalistics services to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses). Article 5 provides that the law would take effect on the day after its promulgation. The bill concerns government departments employing public servants, the Judicial Investigation Directorate, the National Police, and the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. It would also reach the investigated persons covered by the provision and may be of interest to communications media and sectors that disseminate information through documentary or digital channels.