Criminal Procedure Law: Principles and Guarantees

VIII. Criminal Procedure Law

Principles and Procedural Guarantees

• Preliminary Title of the Criminal Procedure Code of 2004 outlines the principles and guarantees.

Principle of Inevitability of Criminal Proceedings

• Also known as the Guarantee of Prior Judgment.
• Reflected in the phrase "Nulla Poena sine Previa Juditio" (No penalty without prior judgment).
• A citizen can only be penalized if a penal process has been carried out in accordance with rights and guarantees.

Principle of Natural Judge

• Ensures jurisdictional independence by ensuring an instructor or judge exists before a crime is committed.
• Jurisdictional bodies are predetermined by law.
• Civilians can't be judged by military tribunals, nor military personnel by civil courts for crimes of function e.g., betrayal, abuse of authority, etc.
• The law determines which bodies are in charge of instruction and judgement of the crime and avoids arbitrariness by interested parties or officials depending on circumstances.

Principle of Legality

• Known as the principle of indiscretion.
• In criminal proceedings, the National Police, Public Ministry, and Judicial Branch must act as per Constitutional norms and other laws.
• Three types of guarantees must be spoken i.e., penal, procedural, and criminal enforcement.
• Procedural guarantees focus on "nemo iudex sine lege, nemo damnetur nisi per legale iudicium", where the penal law can only be applied by bodies established by law for that function and no one can be punished except by legal judgment.

Principle of Plural Instance

• It is a guarantee of the administration of justice, based on the fallibility of the Judge.
• The judge may make mistakes in the process or application of penal law which leads to prejudice for some of the procedural subjects and consequently injustices.

Principle of Appealability

• Criminal Procedure Code of 2004 establishes in its Preliminary Title, the decisions adopted in a process can be questioned or attacked except as expressly specified, limiting the power of the judge.

Presumption of Innocence

• A modern legal achievement, enshrined in the current Constitution, paragraph e) subsection 24 of article 2.
• It is a juris tantum presumption that admits evidence to the contrary.
• Everyone charged is presumed innocent without a conviction.
• Presumption relates to the burden of proof, where the accused doesn't have to prove innocence and the accusers prove the charges.
• The burden of proof rests on the Public Ministry.
• Article II of the Preliminary Title of the Criminal Procedure Code of 2004 develops this principle to make it more effective.
• Anyone accused of committing a punishable act is considered innocent until proven otherwise and their responsibility has been declared through a firm, duly motivated sentence.
• Before said sentence, no official or public authority can present a person as guilty or provide information in that sense.

"In Dubio Pro Reo"

• Applied in case of doubt relating to the presumption of innocence where the accused have to be proven guilty w/ certainty, otherwise absolved.
• In the event of conflicting penal laws over time, the judge favors applying the more favorable law as per the constitutional precept (article 103 of the fundamental norm).

Principle of "Ne Bis In Idem"

• Has a dual substantive and procedural configuration.
• Substantive: "No one can be punished twice for the same offense" and expresses the impossibility of two sanctions on the same subject for the same infraction, because such procedure would constitute an excess of sanctioning power, preventing a person from being punished two or more times for the same infraction.
• Identity of subject, fact, and basis are required because it deals with the same unjust content, the lesion to the same legal right, or the same protected interest.

Procedural

• "No one can be judged twice for the same acts" and prohibits multiple criminal persecutions.
• It is not possible for the same act to be subject to two different processes and prevents the duality of procedures.
• The Criminal Procedure Code of 2004 establishes in Article III of the Preliminary Title the prohibition of multiple criminal prosecution and manifestation of this principle, recognizing administrative accessory, establishing the preeminence of the penal over administrative law.
• The Constitutional Court has expressed the principle of "ne bis in idem": "...It determines a prohibition of the duplication of administrative and penal sanctions with respect to the same acts, but leads to the impossibility that, when the system allows a duality of proceedings, and in each of them must occur an adjudication and a qualification of the same acts, the adjudication and the qualification that can occur in the legal plane, be done independently, if they result from the application of a different normativity. It is clear that the same acts cannot exist and cease to exist for the bodies of the State."
• In the presence of a duality of proceedings, the administrative body is inexorably linked to what has been declared as proven or disproven in the criminal process.

Principle of Officiality and Publicity

• Officiality signifies that the penal process is exclusively entrusted to the jurisdictional body, which is in charge of instruction and trial, with active participation of the Public Ministry.
• The principle is found in the exclusivity / monopoly that the State exercises over the ius punendi.

Guarantee

• The correct administration of justice is the publicity of criminal trials.
• Modern doctrine considers internal and external publicity.
• Internal: The protagonists have the right from the beginning of the process, to access all documents, including the police report.
• External: The public has the right to attend fundamental stages of the process, such as judging and issuing the sentence.
• Publicity in criminal trials is not absolute and can be limited.
• The Constitution authorizes Criminal Chambers to allow entry to a certain number of people or hold it in private e.g., for sexual offense cases affecting personal/family privacy or State security.
• Although the instruction is public, it is reserved for third parties via evidence and is considered a minimum right for the defendant.

Principle of Impulse of Office

• Relates directly to the inquisitorial system with cases originating from a party's will via private exercise of action.
• Generally, the Penal Judge decides the start of the process and makes it culminate.
• The Judge considers the representative's request from the Public Ministry to translate the aims of the penal process into reality and order relevant acts at the right time.

Principle of Procedural Economy

• It is aimed at saving time, expense, and effort, and is seen in the inadmissibility of useless tests restrictions on challenging the prohibition to renew a the complaint if and only if it's and after filing.
• It is unfortunately, a distant principle because the Penal Judge's discretion leads to unnecessary/useless acts.

Principle of Immediation

• Communications are set up between the Judge and people in proceedings, which indicates the immediacy of the Judge with personal elements.
• The test act is practiced before its addressee/the Judge as well as the connection of the Judge with facts relating to the process.

Motivation of Resolutions

• The written motivation of resolutions constitutes a legal duty.
• MIXÁN MASS States: “The behavior object of the duty of motivating consists of concretizing for the Judge the rationally explanatory foundation of the resolution to be issued.The motivation of the resolutions implies the application of an adequate level of knowledge, coherence in the argumentation and relevance between the case matter of the resolution and the argumentation."

Principle of Gratuity

• Under current regulations, penal justice is absolutely free with no limits on access to justice, mainly due to public pursuit.
• The Criminal Procedure Code of 2004 states “Penal justice is free, except for the payment of procedural costs established in accordance with this Code...”, directly relates the introduction of an adversarial model in which private claims can be opposed within the penal process.
• The concept of costs the use of the new procedural law comprises judicial fees, judicial expenses incurred during processing, attorneys' fees, official experts, translators, and interpreters.
• Representatives of the Public Ministry, members of the State Attorney's Offices, the Powers of the State, autonomous constitutional bodies are exempt from paying costs.
• The defendant is liable upon being declared guilty/a security measure is imposed as well as the civil party if it happens otherwise.

2. Penal Action and Civil Action

• Procedural Object.

2.1. PENAL ACTION

a. Definition

• The right of action is an interconnected right to humans and achieves justice.
• The penal action seeks that the Judge pronounce on an act that is considered a crime and apply the penal law to whoever is responsible. The Public Ministry has reserved a monopoly action for public exercise.
• It is entrusted to a State body to activate the penal jurisdiction.
• From the perspective of private prosecution, it is possible to maintain the definition of a subjective right, so who takes affected by the jurisdictional body.

b. Characteristics

• Public: Directed against the State to enforce a right such as the application of Penal Law to satisfy a collective interest (restoring social order disturbed by crime).
• It is said that the penal action is public or private, so an error is committed because the action, in directed the State, is always public, of very the difference in its exercise, which can be public or private.
• Officiality: State monopolizes the exercise through the Public Ministry, except in cases where it is expressly reserved to the initiative of a party (private action = complaints).
• Indivisibility: Reaches all who have participated in the commission of the crime where participants are responsible with the action to be all-encompassing.
• Irrevocability: Once the penal action = prosecution has been exercised), it can only conclude with an acquittal.

c. Moment of exercise of the criminal action

• It begins with the knowledge of the notitia criminis to comprise the stage of preliminary investigation and instruction in prevailing regulations.
• In the mixed model of the Code of Criminal Procedures it corresponds to the instruction, where the Prosecutor and the Judge investigate to clarify the truth about what was reported.
• In the accusatory-guarantista model of the new Criminal Procedure Code, only the Prosecutor prepares the exercise of the action and conducts the investigation.
• The common penal process comes to replace the summary and ordinary process, and the first stage is under the control and direction of the representative of the Public Ministry and is known as preparatory investigation.

d) Forms of exercising the criminal action

• Arose in Continental Europe in the 13th century with the dawn of Absolute States.
• Under the historical view, the public prosecution is linked to offense and is promoted by organizations of the State.
• It occurs when the state is the holder of the criminal action, and it delegates to the Public Ministry in its exercise.
• It is also public, according to Bauman, given the seriousness of the crime and the desire to avoid private retribution; the public good and the avoidance of private vengeance historically justify such involvement.
• Based on the dual process, the Public Ministry is responsible for initiating criminal proceedings and conducting the investigation.
• Criminal Procedure Code divides the process into Sumario or Instrucción and Plenario or Juicio. The Public Ministry practices its's power and its actions by the instance of the aggrieved party/popular action.
• The Public Ministry must act and investigate with direct observation, communication that comes from an aggravated part of popular action.
• It can open police investigation or formalize the complaint. Formalizing the complaint means providing evidence for legal proceedings.
• When a particular person acts/exercises an action, then the action is said to be private.
• Legislation allows you to denounce people for slander against their honor - slight injuries, slander and defamation.
• There is also another stance in doctrine in which there is reference to the public exercise, wherein for certain cases the Public Ministry will require that someone denounce the crime in question.

2.2. Civil Action

• It aims to obtain compensation, belongs to the injured that is an offence and form and transmitted the right.
• It can be established against a and form part of private law and may be transmitted to third parties and heirs.
• The NCPP 2004 regulates the exercise of the civil action in the penal process in Section II of Book One (General Provisions).
• Article 11 NCPP establishes that the exercise of the civil action derived from the punishable act corresponds to the MP and, is valid especially to the injured party by the crime.
• Article 13 NCPP allows the civil party to desist from their claim for civil reparation until before the beginning of the intermediate stage meaning that the action could happen as a Civil suit.
• A final article indicates what happens with a civil action.
• There is an article about the pronouncements and exercise.
• Article 12.3 NCPP establishes that “the acquittal or dismissal order will not prevent prevent impede/ the jurisdictional body from ruling validly exercised, when appropriate."

2.3. Procedural Object

• What process is affirmation before the legal consequence. that a a legal state wants as a cause a legal state of fact.
• Montero Aroca - states it, does nothing more that what criminal is a legal person to determine the a the length and to be able to know
• Claria Olmedo states correctly not considering a purely a (an element) but but by that it is adding if relevant.

3. Technical Means of Defense

• Every law person has the right to appeal to the State to request help for their invaded states in what to do. Can't make a decision, they are only given to the ones who are right. It is only because it is the power of the of the what it is is recognized in such a way.

3.1. Previous Question

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32. Preliminary Question

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3.3. Exceptions

• Legal exceptions exclude criminal action against accused individuals.
• The effects produced classify them:

DILATORY

• Suspensions can and often cause judicial decisions to affect them.

PERENTORIAS

• Destroy and extinguish/remove actions Constitute the action that it stops from what it's stopped.

Principle of Economics Procesal

• Consists of in the waste of time, expense and effort that takes steps such as inadmissibility. of the useless Test, the. restriction of the means impugnation the prohibition of re -. to to present the after the file. Unfortunately it is a very far away principle can. the, so the deadlines, are not reasonable and by the discretion of the Penal Judge; they make acts unnecessary or useless.

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