Draft bill 5.

Summary.

The draft bill proposes to amend Article 488 of the Criminal Procedure Code (código procesal penal), which concerns the requirements for admitting complaints and criminal reports. Under the proposed wording, a complaint or report must be filed in writing through a lawyer. To be admissible, the filing must provide the information listed in the article. The amendment addresses the initial filing and assessment of these submissions through requirements concerning the identification of the persons involved, an account of the alleged act and, where possible, additional information to verify it and determine its legal classification.

The first requirement covers the identity details, address and signature of the complainant or reporting person and of their legal representative. The second requires the identifying details and address of the person complained against. Accordingly, the written submission must identify both the person bringing the complaint or making the report, together with their representative, and the person against whom it is directed. The article places these particulars among the elements that must appear in the submission for its admissibility to be assessed.

The third requirement is a precise, clear and detailed account of the alleged act, including where and when it occurred. The fourth covers any other information necessary to verify the act and determine its legal classification, if providing that information is possible. The required content therefore includes an account of the act and its circumstances of place and time, together with available supplementary information that serves to verify it and establish its legal classification. The proposed text expressly makes the requirement concerning that additional information conditional on its being possible to provide it.

If the complaint or report does not meet the listed requirements for its assessment, the proposed article provides for its outright rejection. It also assigns the issuance of the admissibility decision to the full bench of the Supreme Court of Justice (Corte Suprema de Justicia). The decision must be issued within a period of no more than ten days, counted from the corresponding assignment of the matter. Rejection for failure to meet the requirements and issuance of an admissibility decision are both parts of the procedure set out in the proposed wording of Article 488.

Article 2 states that the proposed law amends Article 488 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Article 3 provides that it will take effect upon promulgation. At the institutional level, the text assigns the admissibility decision to the Supreme Court of Justice. Its provisions could concern people who file complaints or criminal reports, their lawyers, the persons complained against, and people involved in criminal investigations concerning members of the National Assembly.