Criminal Proceedings: Ordinary & Summary
Criminal Proceedings
Types of Criminal Proceedings
There are two types of criminal proceedings for prosecuting crimes prosecuted by public action: Regular and Summary.
Ordinary Criminal Proceedings
Ordinary criminal proceedings take place in two stages: investigation and trial. The investigation period is done in one instance, where two clearly defined stages can be seen: instruction or research enhanced by the criminal judge and the trial conducted by the Superior Board.
These processes clearly have two stages. Research has within four months, which may be extended up to sixty days more in order to collect more evidence. The second stage is the trial or Oral trial taking place before the College of the Criminal Division, under the guiding principles of orality, publicity, immediacy, and contradiction.
Summary Criminal Proceedings
Summary criminal proceedings were established to achieve speed in the administration of justice. Originally set up for less serious crimes such as damage, failure to pay maintenance, and crimes against life, body, and health.
This process gives power to the judge to instruct and pass sentence on the sole merit of the proceedings in the investigation without further analysis or evaluation of evidence and without the trial itself. As a result, this violates the guarantees of orality, immediacy, advertising, and contradiction.
Summary Process
Constitutional
The “ordinary” criminal process, created by the legislature in 1939 as the only way that criminal justice would be taught in conjunction with the summary process, has come to occupy a privileged place in the criminal justice system.
Decree Law No. 17110 introduced the summary proceedings for eight crimes. Later in 1981, Legislative Decree No. 124 began its dominance by expanding the number of crimes that should be processed under its rules. Law No. 26,689, from December 1996, established the criminal summary process as the hegemonic way for the delivery of criminal justice in our country.
The Criminal Procedure: Overview and Critical Analysis
2.1. Political and Legal Foundations
Since the mid-90’s, there has been much attention on the reform of penal control in our country, especially that relating to criminal proceedings. Law 26,689, which extends the powers of summary criminal proceedings, was enacted on November 31, 1996.
Unconstitutionality of Summary Criminal Proceedings
3.1. Combining Investigation and Prosecution Functions
Summary Criminal Procedure concentrates the functions of investigation and prosecution in a single person. This monopoly is detrimental to the Constitution, mainly for the following reasons:
- a. Lack of impartiality
- b. Lack of equality
- c. The delegation of functions
Summary criminal proceedings are not public.
Criminal Summary
Article 1
Judges of First Instance Criminal know the summary trials and sentence offenses under the Penal Code. In the case of a combination of offenses, some of which are more serious and not included in the summary proceedings, the procedures will be followed by the regular process.
Article 2
Summary Procedure is subject to the following offenses under the Criminal Code:
- Crimes against life, body, and health: Murder, abortion, injury, risk exposure, and neglect of people in danger.
- Crimes against the family: Double illegal crime in the civil state, crimes of violence to parental authority, and omission of family assistance.
- Crimes against liberty: Violation of personal freedom, violation of privacy, violation of domicile, violation of secrecy of communications, violation of professional secrecy, violation of freedom of assembly, violation of the freedom to work, violation of freedom of expression, violation of sexual freedom, and public assault offenses.
- Crimes against the Estate: Theft, misappropriation, receiving, scams and other frauds, fraud in the Administration of Legal, usurpation, and damage.
- Crimes against trust and good faith in business: Bankruptcy, usury, and undue warrants.
- Crimes against intellectual property rights: Crimes against copyright and related crimes against industrial property.
- Crimes against the economy: Abuse of economic power, hoarding, speculation, and adulteration.
- Crimes against the financial and monetary order: Financial crimes and money crimes.
- Fiscal offenses: Processing and trade of illegal products.
- Crimes against public safety: Common danger, crimes against means of transport, communication and other public services, and crimes against public health.
- Crimes against ecology
- Crimes against public tranquility: Crimes against public peace.
- Crimes against the State and National Defense: Crimes against the symbols and values of the country.
- Crimes against the popular will: Crimes against the right to vote.