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which confirmed that the United States Government was observing the
conditions in which the trial was held and the final ruling of the Supreme
Court, and considered that the basic standards of due process of law had
been respected. The local human rights community shared this opinion.
The process of regularizing the State’s institutional structure continued after
the Government was handed over to President Alejandro Toledo Manrique.
On January 3, 2003, the Constitutional Court of Peru declared that a series of
provisions included in the decree laws on terrorism promulgated in 1992 were
anti-constitutional and revoked them. It ordered a review of the trials held by
the military courts or before courts with “faceless judges,” and of any other
trials whose result had been determined by the application of a norm that had
been declared anti-constitutional. In execution of this ruling, Congress
delegated special faculties to the Executive to review and redefine the
applicable legislation in these cases, by Law No. 27,913. In February 2003,
the Executive enacted six legislative decrees establishing the procedures for
reviewing judicial cases.
e.
Testimony of Walter Albán Peralta, Ombudsman of the Republic
of Peru
Following the coup d’état of April 1992, the legislative system for the criminal
prosecution of terrorism was designed and consolidated during the
Government of Alberto Fujimori. The military justice system was given a
leading role and expanded, which was unconstitutional. The State promoted
and supported the unlawful activities of the intelligence services, and
designed a legal and extra-legal system for the control of the justice system.
The anti-terrorist legislation was the expression of this authoritarian political
regime, which perceived respect for the rule of law and fundamental rights as
obstacles to the need to combat terrorism.
At the substantive level, Decree Law No. 25,475 of May 6, 1992, regulated
the basic crime of terrorism, and some aggravated categories: collaboration
with and justification of terrorism. Decree Law No. 25,659 defined other
aggravated types of the crime of terrorism as crimes of treason. Decree Law
No. 25,580 also considered that the justification of terrorism by teachers
constituted treason. Decree Law No. 26,880 considered the same with regard
to cases of terrorism involving persons availing themselves of the repentance
legislation. Defining these crimes as treason responded expressly to the
desire to transfer their prosecution to the military justice system.
At the procedural level, Decree Law No. 25,475 included the procedural
system applicable to the basic crime of terrorism and to the other categories
of crime regulated in this norm. Decree Law No. 25,659 of August 13, 1992,
excluded habeas corpus in the case of those prosecuted for crimes of
terrorism. Decree Law No. 25,728 of September 18, 1992, established the
possibility of convicting a person in absentia. Decree Law 25,708 of
September 10, 1992, established that crimes of treason would be judged
using a procedure known as “in the theater of operations,” established in the
Code of Military Justice. Finally, Decree Law No. 25,744 established rules
applicable to the police investigation, preparation of the case and trial of
crimes of treason.