5. State institutions and access to justice

5.1. Attorney-General's Office (Fiscalía General de la Nación, FGN)

The FGN was established by the 1991 Constitution and is independent of the executive branch; it is tasked with criminal investigation, fighting criminality, and ensuring access to efficient justice.833 With 5 000 to 6 000 prosecutors and 8 000 investigators, the FGN is deployed across the national territory, and present in approximately 1 100 municipalities.834 There are about 8.9 prosecutors per 100 000 inhabitants.835 In Colombia, the heads of bodies such as the Office of the Ombudsperson and the FGN serve staggered four-year terms, meaning each president works with both their own appointees and those of their predecessor. Recently, new leadership more aligned with President Petro has taken office, leading to stronger cooperation—especially from the FGN—on government priorities like peace negotiations and the suspension of arrest warrants for participants in those talks.836 The FGN has the Judicial Police Corps for Investigations (Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación, CTI), which deals with crime and investigations, identifying perpetrators and bringing them to justice. Intermediaries can access the unit physically at police stations, by telephone, through the national hotline 122, by email or through internet platform for reporting crime.837

The FGN has a Special Investigation Unit (Unidad Especial de Investigación) and has implemented a new investigation model to identify linkages between attacks against former FARC combatants and human rights defenders.838 Writing in July 2025, the UNVMC reported that there have been convictions of 116 individuals, including 5 considered 'most responsible' out of the 611 cases under investigation since 2017.1173F839 The FGN stated that resolution of murders of human rights defenders is between 65-70 %, however, this only means a suspect has been identified; in terms of prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment, the rate drops significantly with the FGN obtaining approximately 180 convictions since 2016.840 Out of a total of 595 cases of attacks on former combatants under the purview of the FGN's Special Investigation Unit, there have been 97 convictions and 190 in trial phase.841 Impunity remained high due to the Unit's weakness in prosecuting those materially and intellectually responsible for attacks.842 High levels of impunity are driven by problems with the investigative and prosecutorial processes of the FGN; with most judicial bottlenecks occurring at the first stages of the justice system.⁸⁴³ Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia indicated in 2024 that out of the almost 2 million criminal complaints filed, 93.2 % stagnate in the preliminary stages of investigation, without getting into a judicial hearing; that out of the 1.4 million solved cases, 81.9 % were archived (closed without full adjudication), and only 3.7 % reached a first-instance decision from a judge; and that the national conviction rate for oral trials was about 56.6 %.844