Series on the rights of the victims and the application of Law 975. Bulletin No 26

1. COMISIÓN COLOMBIANA DE JURISTAS
Organización no gubernamental con estatus consultiv o ante la ONU
Filial de la Comisión Internacional de Juristas (Ginebra) y de la Comisión Andina de Juristas (Lima)
PERSONERÍA JURÍDICA: RESOLUCIÓN 1060, AGOSTO DE 1988 DE LA ALCALDÍA MAYOR DE BOGOTÁ
Bulletin No 26: Series on the rights of the victims and the application of Law 975
Law is approved that legalizes armed usurpation of lands
On January 8, 2008, Law 1182 “through which a special process is established for
regularizing real estate property” was sanctioned. The law was approved after the
corresponding bill was sent to Congress on three different occasions.1
The law establishes a special procedure, with very brief time limits, to regularize flawed or
incomplete title deeds of properties of less than half a hectare in the urban sector, and of
less than 10 hectares in the rural sector, which means legalizing land and home ownership
under very lax procedures.
The special procedure created by the regularization law does not offer sufficient guarantees
so that people who have been victims of forced displacement can express their opposition
within the process. This would be tantamount to the legalization of usurpation, since the
law makes it easier to grant title deeds in the name of those having committed human rights
violations and breaches of humanitarian law with the purpose of displacing the peasants
from their lands and occupying them marginally or exploiting them through resettlement.
The Colombian Congress approved the law in spite of the fact that various sectors of
society had complained that it goes against the right to land and to the restitution of the
property of the displaced population. The legislators disregarded those arguments and
ignored the fact that the legal framework of the negotiations with the paramilitary groups
does not guarantee the rights to truth, justice, and reparation. With regard to this last right,
the paramilitary groups have returned only a minimal part of the goods they usurped
through armed violence.
In the opinion of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, the most worrying aspects of the
law of regularization of the title deeds of real estate property are the following:
1. It disregards the lack of registration of the property of the displaced population
*The European Union supported the first phase of this project, between July and December of 2006, during which this
series of information bulletins was begun and the first twelve numbers published, available on the web page. The present
publication has been prepared under the auspices of the Canadian government, and its content is the sole responsibility of
the Colombian Commission of Jurists. In no way should it be thought to reflect the point of view of the European Union
or of the government of Canada.
1
Bills presented under registration numbers 230 of 2004-Senate; 319 of 2005-Chamber of Representatives;
and 102 of 2006-Chamber – 247 of 2007-Senate.
Calle 72 Nº 12-65 piso 7 PBX: (571) 3768200 – (571) 3434710 Fax: (571) 3768230
Email: ccj@coljuristas.org Website: www.coljuristas.org
Bogotá, Colombia

2. National legislation foresees the adoption of measures to protect rural property abandoned
by the displaced population. Abandoned urban property is not legally protected.
There are serious omissions in the individual protection accorded to rural real estate
property abandoned by the displaced population, which is activated at the request of each
displaced person. In 2006, the Colombian Institute for Rural Development – Incoder in
Spanish – which took over the functions of the former Colombian Institute for Agrarian
Reform – Incora - , began to keep a registry of the abandoned holdings, a responsibility that
had been assigned to Incora ever since Law 387 was approved in 1997. 2
This procedure of individual protection has had a very limited application. According to
information on the Social Action Program for the Protection of Land Property provided to
UNHCR, as of December of 2006 only 32% of the protection requests had been processed
and 5% of land properties had been the object of protective measures. An effective form of
protection for the owners of abandoned property, which consists in the annotation of the
real estate registration number, did not exceed 15% of the displaced persons who exercised
this right, and fewer than 15% of the property owners have actually achieved the effective
protection of their properties. 3.
The procedure for collective protection foreseen in Decree 2007 of 2001 has also been
rarely applied. This procedure covers the properties of a given area once the Municipal or
Departmental Committees for the Care of the Displaced Population issue a declaration of
2
Numeral 1 of Article 19 of Law 387 of 1997 assigned to Incora the function of “registering the rural
landholdings abandoned by persons displaced by violence and inform the competent authorities so they may
proceed to prevent any conveyance or transfer of the title deeds of such property when such action is taken
against the will of the holders of the respective rights.”
3
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – UNHCR -, Balance de la política pública de prevención,
protección y atención al desplazamiento interno forzado en Colombia agosto 2002 – agosto 2004
(Assessment of Public Policy of Prevention, Protection, and Attention Regarding Forced Internal
Displacement in Colombia, August 2002 – August 2004) Bogotá, December 2004, page 161.
2

3. imminent displacement or of imminent risk of displacement.4 UNHCR has pointed out that
“of the 15 departments where the most abandoned lands have been registered, only in six
of them have such declarations been issued.” 5 According to that U.N. agency, since the
expedition of the above mentioned decree in 2001, only 61 municipalities in the country –
the equivalent of 6.4% of all municipalities that dispel displaced persons – have issued such
a declaration, but Incoder did not include it in the Single Register of Real Estate
Properties.6
Another measure affecting negatively the protection of properties abandoned by the
displaced population is the transfer of the responsibility for registering such properties from
Incoder to the Superintendence of Public Notaries and Registry (Superintendencia de
Notariado y Registro), ordered by Law 1152 of 2007, which approved the Rural
Development Statute.
Additionally, this Statute weakened the protective capacity of Decree 2007 of 2001 since,
in its Article 128, it establishes that the report on rural properties included in declarations of
imminent risk or of the occurrence of the initial events originating displacement, and
registering the right of ownership and the basic characteristics of the real estate properties,
will no longer be sufficient proof of ownership, tenancy or occupancy by the displaced
persons.
2. It does not foresee any effective mechanism for the protection of the victims of
forced displacement.
4
Decree No. 2007 of 2001, “through which Articles 7, 17, and 19 of Law 387 of 1997 are partially regulated
concerning the timely assistance to the rural population displaced by violence, in the context of voluntary
return to their place of origin or their resettlement somewhere else, and measures are adopted tending to
prevent this situation,” in its Article 1 establishes the declaration of imminence of risk of displacement or of
forced displacement in an area in order to limit the conveyance or transference of any title deed of rural
property. It also establishes de responsibility of Municipal Mayors, Rural Judicial Procurators, Heads of
Section of the Geographic Institute Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, Registrars of Certified Instruments, and
Regional Managers of Incoder, who must present to the Municipal, District or Department-level Committees
for the Attention of the Displaced Population a report on rural properties existing on the date of the of the
Declaration of imminence of risk or occurrence of the first acts that produced displacement. Such a report,
which must elucidate the legally established title holders, once it is approved by the Committee, constituted
sufficient proof for the displaced persons to guarantee their status as owner, tenant, or occupant.
5
UNHCR, quoted above in Note 3, pages 157 and 158.
6
Ibid., pages 158 and 159.
3

4. As the Vice-minister of the Interior admitted in Congress on August 15, 2007, “... the bill
to regularize real estate property is not aimed at benefiting the displaced population… Not
in the least! ” 7
The law disregards the fact that the women, the owners, the occupants and tenants who
have been forcibly displaced face additional difficulties to have their rights identified and
included in the Single Register of Real Estate Properties.
Articles 1 and 10 of the law, which exclude from the special process properties acquired
through violence, forced displacement or usurpation, do not constitute an effective
guarantee of protection of the rights of displaced persons.
The above-mentioned articles establish that the burden of proof falls upon the victims of
such misconduct, who must demonstrate that they were the occupants and users of the real
estate, which is even harder to prove for those who have no title deeds – especially for
widows and women heads of households.
3. It offers no guarantees to the displaced population opposed to the regularization.
The law does not foresee any effective mechanisms allowing the victims of forced
displacement to express their opposition to the regularization process. The proceeding of
judicial inspection of the property is the only opportunity that the victims will have to state
verbally their objections relating to the property, ownership, forced displacement, action by
frontmen or any other form of violence or deceit.
Given the extreme vulnerability and risk at which the victims find themselves, they will
have no guarantees of security to oppose those who seek to benefit from the regularization
of ownership, since the exercise of their right of defense implies participating in
proceedings that take place in the municipality they were forced to flee from, where the
supposedly demobilized paramilitaries are still present and continue to violate human rights
and exert pressure on the decision of local authorities.
The displaced population will find it difficult to express their opposition to the
regularization process due to the insufficient publicity foreseen in the law and the
generalized under-registration of abandoned properties mentioned in Paragraph 1 of the
present document.
7
Declaration by the Vice-Minister of Justice, Dr. Guillermo Reyes, during his intervention at the public
hearing convoked by the First Commission of Chamber of Representatives in the context of the debate on Bill
102 of 2006-Senate, 247 of 2007-Chamber, “through which a special procedure is established for the
regularization of title deeds of real estate property.” Hearing carried out on August 15, 2007.
4

5. 4. It reinforces impunity of crimes committed by paramilitary groups and is
contrary to the right of the victims to reparation.
Until December of 2007, the accounts of the Reparation Fund, created by Law 975 of 2005,
report the handover by the paramilitaries of a total of 4,754.2 hectares of rural properties
and five urban real estate objects,8 which is equivalent to between 0, 07 and 0, 18 percent of
the lands abandoned by the displaced population.9
The law regularizing real estate property title deeds is contrary to the Basic principles
regarding the right of victims of manifest violations of international human rights norms
and serious breaches of humanitarian law to lodge petitions of redress and obtain
reparations, which establish, among other obligations of the states, that of “[A]dopting
legislative and administrative measures, and other appropriate steps to prevent the
violations; [p]rovide the victims effective resources, including reparation.”10 The law
violates the right to restitution recognized by said Principles and by the Principles on the
restitution of homes and patrimony of refugees and displaced persons,11 due to the fact that
it is a mechanism that makes it easier to legalize the plunder of the patrimony of the victims
of displacement, in addition to the absence of implementation of the legal mechanisms for
the protection of the property of the displaced population and to the fact that the
paramilitary groups, supposedly demobilized, have not handed over the property they
usurped through armed violence.
Likewise, the law ignores the concerns of the Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, who warned about
the importance of “addressing rigorously the question of the appropriation of lands by
third parties during the displacement of the original population.”12 The law disregards
also the recommendation by the Special Representative to, among other measures, declare
void all the title deeds of the lands acquired under duress, preventing all transactions of
8
Fund for the Reparation of the Victims, administered by Social Action, consulted January 17, 2008 in en http//
www.accionsocial.gov.co/contenido/contenido.aspx?catID=455&conID=1667
9
Taking as reference the estimates by the Comptroller’s Office of 2.6 million hectares abandoned by the
displaced population until 2005, the land properties handed over by the paramilitaries until December 14,
2007, make up 0.18% of that area. The land handed over by the paramilitaries amounts to 0.07% of the 6.8
million hectares abandoned until 2005, according to the Social Action Project for the Protection of Property of
the Rural Displaced Population.
10
United Nations, Resolution 60/147 approved by the General Assembly on December 16, 2005, Annex,
Basic principles regarding the right of victims of manifest violations of international human rights norms and
serious breaches of humanitarian law to lodge petitions of redress and obtain reparations Resolution 60/147
approved by the General Assembly on December 16, 2005, A/RES/60/147, March 21, 2006, par.3.
11
Human Rights Commission, 57th Period of Sessions, Principles on the restitution of homes and patrimony
of refugees and displaced persons, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/17, June 28, 2005.
12
United Nations, Report presented by the Representative of the Secretary General on the human rights of the
internally displaced, Mr. Walter Kaelin, Mission to Colombia, Human Rights Council, Fourth Period of
Sessions, Topic 2 of the provisional agenda, A/HRC/4/38/Add.3, January 24, 2007, par. 54.
5

6. such lands, and to rule that those who aspire to gain access to the benefits of Law 975 of
2005 must declare “the whole truth, including information on the displacements they have
caused and the lands and properties they confiscated during their activities, as well as the
names of the persons they transferred them to in case they did not acquire them for
themselves.” 13
The law overlooks also the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court with regard to the
rights of the victims of displacement to truth, justice, and reparation, a tribunal which, in
October 2007, by means of its Sentence T-821 de 2007,14 ordered that measures be taken to
guarantee the rights to possession and restitution of the property of the displaced
population.
Likewise, the law reinforces the set of legislative reforms promoted by the government that
violate the right to the land, such as the National Development Plan, the Rural
Development Statute, and the Agro-Income Security Program, all of which contribute to
legalize illegal possession by paramilitary groups, develop agro-industrial activities carried
out on usurped lands, and promote impunity of the crime of forced displacement.
An indispensable step toward complying with the Colombian state’s obligations with
respect to the rights of the victims and overcoming displacement is the implementation of
policies which effectively fulfill the right to restitution of lands of the displaced population.
To that end, it must apply the Principles on the restitution of homes and patrimony of
refugees and displaced persons, which are part of the Constitution and establish, among
other obligations, that “[T]he states must not approve or enforce laws that undermine the
restitution process, such as laws of arbitrary abandonment or limitation that, for any given
reason, are discriminatory or unfair.” 15
The Colombian state’s disregard of its international obligations, evident in the approval of
the law for regularizing ownership of real estate property, seriously compromises its
responsibility, and, together with Law 975, contributes to generate impunity for
paramilitaries, to the detriment of the most vulnerable population groups for whom the
1991 Constitution preserved a special treatment.
Bogotá, March 13, 2008
For more information, please contact Gustavo Gallón-Giraldo, Director of the CCJ, at Tel. (571) 376 8200, Ext. 115.
13
United Nations, quoted supra in Note 10, par. 80.
14
Constitutional Court, Sentence T-821 de 2007, M.P. (e): Catalina Botero Marino.
15
United Nations, Principles on the restitution of homes and patrimony of refugees and displaced persons,
adopted by the Sub-commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights through Resolution
2005/21 of August 11, 2005, Principle No. 19.
6