On August 21, 2024, the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice issued a cassation ruling under file No. 64.534, with Jorge Hernán Díaz Soto as the Presiding Magistrate. In this decision, the Court addressed the rights and duties of the parties during the stage of evidentiary requests, from the discovery of evidence to its formal submission, aiming to clarify which evidence can be valid in court and which cannot.
While there are numerous rulings that discuss these topics and, generally speaking, the debates around them are well-established, this ruling introduces an interesting jurisprudential line that many criminal lawyers might not be familiar with: the evidentiary value of rulings from other judicial or administrative authorities within criminal proceedings.
The case revolves around the defense's requests to introduce decisions from a disciplinary proceeding before the Colombian Superior Council of the Judiciary as evidence in a criminal trial, with the purpose of demonstrating the defendant's innocence regarding the crime of prevarication.
The Court concluded that no ruling from any authority can serve as evidence in a criminal trial. This is because a judgment issued by any official involves an assessment of certain evidence, leading to subjective evaluations by the judge that result in either a conviction or an acquittal. Thus, accepting a ruling from another proceeding as evidence would violate the principle of contradiction, as it would imply accepting facts that were not examined in the criminal trial at hand.
Furthermore, the Court emphasized that allowing a ruling as evidence would not only undermine the autonomy of criminal judges but would also be impossible since the concept of transferred evidence does not exist in criminal law. Although different types of legal proceedings may touch on facts relevant to a criminal case, the proper way to introduce related evidence is through the specific evidentiary elements and according to the rules outlined in the Colombian Criminal Procedure Code.
In other words, if a crucial testimony was presented in a separate proceeding and played a key role in achieving a favorable outcome for the client, and that testimony is necessary in the criminal trial, the ruling should not be submitted as evidence. Instead, the testimony must be discovered, listed, and requested to be presented again during the criminal trial, allowing the opposing party to exercise their right of contradiction, and enabling the judge to directly assess the evidence. This applies even if the parties are already familiar with the content of the testimony and the ruling from the other proceeding.
However, as with any rule, there is an exception. The only instance in which a ruling can be considered as evidence is when it demonstrates the flagrant commission of a crime. For example, in the case of a judge issuing a decision contrary to the law, which constitutes the crime of prevarication. In that scenario, the ruling can have probative value because it serves as the basis for demonstrating the commission of a crime.
Since it is common for proceedings of different natures to be initiated over related facts, it is not unusual for lawyers to make the mistake of requesting that rulings from other authorities be considered as evidence in a criminal trial. This practice not only contravenes the principle of contradiction but also goes against Colombian criminal procedural law. Therefore, to avoid setbacks in court and ensure the proper submission of relevant evidence, it is crucial to remember that if information from a non-criminal proceeding is needed in a criminal trial, the correct approach is to introduce the relevant evidentiary elements according to the rules of the Criminal Procedure Code.
