Habeas granted in Colombia

El Tiempo reports that the Colombian Council of State has granted a writ of habeas corpus to a noncommissioned officer whose application for early release under the Final Peace Agreement (after 5 years of military confinement) had not been acted on by the Extraordinary Peace Court within the prescribed 10-day deadline. The court's secretariat argued that the deadline applies only to FARC members, and not to military personnel seeking to invoke the peace agreement. The Council of State rejected that contention:

"This office must vigorously reject the reasons given by the Executive Secretariat of the JEP, since under no consideration is the delay of a little more than four months in the resolution of a matter directly involving the exercise or enjoyment of a human right such as the benefit of transitional, conditioned and anticipated personal freedom under the terms of the Final Agreement and Law 1820 of 2016," the court document said. Thus, concluded the magistrate in resolving the case of [Sgt. Luis Angel] Reyes that all subjects, both guerrillas and agents of the State, who can obtain benefits derived from the Final Peace Agreement, have the right to have their legal situation be processed with the guarantee of reasonable time. [Google translation]