Welcoming the order of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CVR), the Judicial Power will create a judicial subsystem to try cases of Human rights violations,  the head of the Supreme Court, Hugo Stolen Sivina announced.

With this objective, it will amplify the competence and change the name of the National Room of Terrorism, so that it will also investigate and judge human rights crimes and violations that happened in the decades of political violence that affected the country.

Sivina stated that the Executive Council is studying the subject of Judicial Power and it will most likely be approved in the next few days. The name of the antiterrorist court will possibly change to the National Penal Room.

"There are facts that cannot be seen in a general way, for example terrorism, and that need an integral vision. For that reason the Room of Terrorism was created, but now it no longer has a very big case load and can assume new tasks. In addition, terrorism has to do with human rights. We are going to take advantage of the experience obtained by these magistrates," Sivina emphasized.

"But, I think," continued Sivina, "that the main problem that the State will confront in these  human rights cases, will be the identification of the bodies found in the clandestine graves. Those victims must be given to their relatives; the government must invest in DNA laboratories so that they will be able to identify them."

In less than a year, the National Room of Terrorism has solved nearly 52% of the proceedings in its domain, including the 1,484 cases derived from military jurisdiction. The 4 courts have a single pending load of only 137 proceedings and in the 4 Superior Rooms there are 287 proceedings.

The president of the Room of Terrorism, Pablo Talavera, indicated that he eagerly awaits the decision of the CEPJ, as the judges of his court have studied human rights and have the experience and ability to investigate facts that occurred more than 10 years ago.

In other Commission news, the victims of the political violence during the period of 1980-2000 will have to wait for reparations and justice, because there is no budget to implement the recommendations of the CVR. The minister of Health, Pillar Mazzetti Soler, stated that 78 million U.S. dollars is needed to run projects in the zones that were damaged by political violence

Published in: La Republica, Copyright La Republica 2004, 24 August 2004