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The jurisdiction was created under the peace agreement to bring into civilian life those responsible for war crimes during the armed conflict in Colombia.
Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) announced Monday it is processing over 650 applications by those who participated in the country’s 50-year conflict.
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JEP president, Patricia Linares, told reporters that of the 657 total applications for help through the special court, 540 submission requests were delivered by civil third parties and the remaining 117 by state agencies.
Linares also said that the cases will be analyzed one by one "to prevent people who would not have the right or the possibility of being admitted to the jurisdiction to try to do so."
The JEP is the backbone of the peace agreement signed between the Colombian state and the then Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency in November 2016, after several years of negotiations in Havana, Cuba.
The court was created under the agreement to judge those responsible for war crimes during the conflict. The system was put in place as a way “to ensure accountability for what happened, guarantee the legal security of participants and guarantee the coexistence, reconciliation, and non-repetition of the conflict and thus ensure the transition from armed conflict to peace,” according to the government.
However, Colombian President Ivan Duque has strongly opposed the agreement since its inception and during his presidency. Last March, he tried, and failed to amend six articles of the law outlining the JEP court that would have further criminalized former FARC who were trying to remain in the system and return to civilian life.
Late last month, the FARC party announced in a communiqué that it would officially break with the system that upholds the JEP saying the special court has been manipulated by the current government of Duque.
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