Colombia's justice system under-staffed, under-protected and under attack: Report http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16573-colombias-justice-system-under-staffed-under-protected-and-under-attack-legal-report.html

Colombia's justice system has seen no improvement over the past few years. The chronic under-staffing of prosecution offices continues to impede judicial processes, while the country's judges, lawyers and prosecutors continue to be submitted to threats and violence, according to a newly released report.The International Caravana of Lawyers launched the report, titled “Colombia: The Legal Profession Still Under Attack,” in London on Thursday, after a delegation of 57 lawyers from 15 countries visited Colombia and gleaned what they could from legal workers throughout the country.

The report illuminates a legal system in which “Regrettably, the Delegation could not note a significant improvement in access to justice and free exercise of the legal profession since it last visited Colombia in 2008.”“The Delegation found that there continues to be a large number of assassinations of and threats against Colombian lawyers, human rights defenders and trade unionists...and, in many cases, [they] do not seem to receive the attention by authorities that such threats deserve,” the report states.

One of the main obstacles to any progress towards achieving justice, however, is the “insurmountably high” number of cases that each prosecutor is managing at any given time.In the southern department of Nariño, Prosecutor’s Office lawyers have an average of 700 cases open simultaneously. Moreover, in the northern city of Cucuta, Norte de Santander department, only two prosecutors are investigating the estimated 5000 cases of human rights violations attributed to the AUC’s Bloque Catatumbo group.