Decision adopted unanimously by the IPU Governing Council at its 195th session The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Referring to the case of Ms. Piedad del Socorro Zuccardi de García, a member of the National Congress of Colombia when an investigation was opened against her on charges of aggravated criminal conspiracy for the purpose of organizing, promoting, arming or financing illegal armed groups, following accusations that she had cooperated with paramilitary groups, and to the resolution it adopted on her case at its 193rd session (October 2013), Having before it the case of Mr. Oscar Arboleda Palacio, a former member of the National Congress of Colombia, which has been examined by the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians pursuant to the Procedure for the examination and treatment of complaints (Annex I of the revised rules and practices); considering that Mr. Arboleda is being investigated on the same charges as Ms. Zuccardi de García, Considering that Ms. Zuccardi de García and Mr. Arboleda were placed in pretrial detention by decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice on 5 March and on 11 September 2013 respectively and that on 8 October 2014 the Supreme Court changed Mr. Arboleda’s detention to house arrest in response to his poor health and the treatment he required, Considering that the complainants point out that both former members of Congress do not benefit from a fair trial and are being prosecuted in the absence of any concrete and reliable proof, with the prosecution relying significantly on the testimony of a convicted drug trafficker and self-proclaimed demobilized paramilitary member, Mr. Juan Carlos Sierra alias “El Tuso”; they point in this regard also to the decisions by the Office of the Attorney-General (Procuraduría) had on 12 June 2012 and on 5 November 2013 to dismiss the cases against Ms. Zuccardi de García and Mr. Arboleda respectively, Considering the following: The reports of the Committee’s on-site missions to Colombia in 2009 and 2010 refer extensively to concerns about respect for fair-trial guarantees in criminal proceedings against current and former members of Congress, who are investigated and judged in single instance by the Supreme Court, and about how the investigation and proceedings are handled in practice; with regard to the testimony of demobilized paramilitaries, the 2010 mission concluded, “such testimonies, however useful they may be, must be treated with great caution. The credibility of those persons, who have committed atrocious abuses, cannot be taken for granted. What seems clear is that the demobilized paramilitaries have their own interest in acting in a certain manner in order to be granted the lenient sentences provided for in the Justice and Peace Act. This necessarily implies that many feel it better to speak than remain silent, even when they know little or no information,” Considering that several attempts have been made to introduce legislation to ensure that Colombian parliamentarians enjoy, like other Colombian citizens, the right to a fair trial, including the possibility of appeal, and that the most recent attempt was part of a larger series of judicial reform measures adopted by the Colombian Congress on 20 June 2012, but subsequently abandoned after the President of the Republic objected to it; considering that a bill to balance the powers of the different branches of the State was brought before the National Congress in September 2014, Considering finally that an observer from the IPU, Mr. Nick Stanage from Doughty Street Chambers, attended the hearings which took place before the Supreme Court in both cases on 22 and 23 September 2014 and met with several of the parties directly concerned and has produced a report in which he expresses both concern about due process and the evaluation of the credibility of the evidence at hand,
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