How cuts under Colombia’s de la Espriella threaten a key human rights court

President Abelardo de la Espriella has pledged to slash spending on JEP, Colombia's transitional justice court. But war crimes victims fear the cost.

Bogota, Colombia – Angela Cordon was only a teenager when her father and uncle disappeared.

They were among a string of farmers and merchants to go missing in the southwestern department of Huila in Colombia.

First came her uncle Reynaldo Cordon Herrera's kidnapping. A grocer by trade, he had been travelling by truck on January 22, 2003, when he went missing.

The next month, Guillermo Cordon Herrera — Angela's father — set out to discover what happened to his brother, tracing his whereabouts through rural Colombia.

Guillermo called home one night with news: He had made contact with the rebel fighters he believed to be responsible for his brother's abduction.

It was the last time his family would ever hear from him. His body was never found, nor was his brother's.

Angela's father and uncle are among the more than 450,664 people killed as part of Colombia's six-decade-long internal armed conflict.

In the 23 years since their disappearance, Angela and her family have sought any information they could find about their loved ones' last days. "I have dedicated my life to this search," she told Al Jazeera.

She credits one institution in particular with helping her find answers: Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a transitional justice court.

Set up in 2016 as part of a peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest rebel group at the time, the court handles the prosecution and investigation of crimes committed during the conflict.

But victims, their loved ones and even some former fighters fear that budget cuts could gut JEP, leaving the court unable to fulfil its mission.

This month, the administration of right-wing President Abelardo de la Espriella announced it would enact a 2027 budget with dramatic reductions for government bodies like JEP.

The total cuts to JEP were valued at around 181 billion Colombian pesos, or roughly $57m.

On Wednesday, a Senate committee also advanced a bill to eliminate JEP altogether by March 2028, with a proposal to transfer its functions to the general court system.

Angela, however, credits JEP with offering closure that the criminal justice system was never able to provide. She worries that slashing the court's funding — much less shuttering it entirely — could derail its work.

Through JEP, Angela learned about her father and uncle's time in captivity, as well as the site of their execution. JEP has also worked with former FARC members to try to locate their remains.

"Fewer resources mean fewer missions to the field to find answers, less humanitarian personnel," Angela said, bracing for the cuts.

"It probably means that we will never be able to return to the site."

De la Espriella has framed the budget reduction as necessary to combat Colombia's rising public debt, which exceeds $370bn.

"It is my duty to manage spending, demand results, and allocate the government's limited resources to a justice system that serves everyone," de la Espriella wrote in a September statement, defending his decision to trim JEP's funding.

He estimated that its payroll budget alone was north of 404 billion pesos, or $127m, in 2026.

Critics, however, have questioned whether austerity is the motive for the downsizing.

At around 634 trillion pesos or $200bn, de la Espriella's 2027 budget increases spending overall.

Passed by presidential decree, the budget is considered the largest spending package in the history of the country.

But de la Espriella has targeted JEP for reasons beyond its cost. He has repeatedly criticised JEP as slow and ineffective, failing to deliver on its promises of justice.

He has also slammed the court's investigations as biased against military members — and too lenient on rebels.

In an interview with the radio show Recap Blu, he accused JEP of "persecuting the heroes of the homeland" while "washing the hands of the guerrillas who committed crimes against humanity".

But many victims' rights advocates dispute that assessment.

Ana Maria Rodriguez, a lawyer who represents victims of Colombia's conflict, described the accusation of bias as "patently false".

She pointed out that JEP has convicted some of the top leadership in the FARC, the rebel group that disarmed as part of the 2016 peace deal.

“It hasn’t been perfect or complete,” Rodriguez said of the JEP's work. "But the peace process here has become a model studied by other countries around the world. We have to keep this process functional.”

She believes that cuts to the court's budget will lead to fewer convictions, furthering impunity rather than preventing it.

“Many of the [perpetrators] have never faced any justice mechanisms outside of the JEP,” Rodriguez said.

In its effort to close unsolved cases, the court has offered leniency to soldiers, rebels and other fighters in exchange for cooperation with ongoing investigations.

Those cases typically result in rehabilitation work instead of a prison sentence, with defendants asked to engage in community service.

Those kinds of sentences have fuelled some of the criticism against JEP. But Rodriguez feels such trade-offs are necessary to offer resolution to victims' families.

After all, more than 100,000 people have been reported missing in Colombia's conflict. Their fate remains unknown.

“It isn’t clear how cases will be able to proceed without witness cooperation programmes," Rodriguez said.

She predicted that shrinking JEP's funding will be "absolutely disastrous for victims".

Ahead of the anticipated cuts to JEP this month, more than 20 Colombian Congress members signed an open letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC), asking for help.

The ICC shares a similar mandate as JEP, as both are charged with investigating and prosecuting war crimes.

The international court was also supportive of the 2016 peace deal that gave rise to JEP's creation.

"We are concerned that [the budget's] approval will jeopardise investigations, trials and the execution of sentences for crimes under the court's jurisdiction," the lawmakers wrote to the ICC, in a request for support.

Alberto Yepes, a spokesman for the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination Group, a human rights coalition, is among those rallying against the JEP cuts.

He sees a connection between the attacks on JEP and de la Espriella's heavy-handed approach to law enforcement.

De la Espriella, he explained, has modelled his security platform on hardline programmes in countries like El Salvador and Ecuador, where police and soldiers have been granted expanded powers.

Yepes believes that, by weakening JEP, the president may seek to prevent the future prosecution of military leaders in cases involving state crimes.

"These policies accompany aggressive new security measures, and combined, I think it seems very clear that this government is seeking impunity for the military," Yepes said.

In addition to reducing JEP's funding, de la Espriella's government is reportedly weighing a 116-page "counterterrorism" bill that would increase penalties for certain offences, criminalise some forms of protest, and make it more difficult to suspend military operations.

In Yepes's view, the ultimate goal is to shield law enforcement from accountability.

"De la Espriella is making decisions for a minority of the people that will benefit from these policies," he said.