Legitimacy of Special Justice for Peace in Colombian Public Opinion

An essential part of the peace agreements signed between the Colombian government and the FARC is the transitional justice system. The heart of this system is the Special Justice for Peace (JEP), specifically the Peace Tribunal and the adjoining chambers. This project seeks to take advantage of the unique opportunity to study the initial stages of the creation and functioning of a high-profile, broad-jurisdictional national court such as the JEP to answer two interrelated questions of theoretical and empirical relevance: what factors explain the legitimacy of the courts in the eyes of citizens? How do individuals construct their evaluations of the courts? I propose to design a survey that includes two experiments created especially to evaluate the importance of different factors in the construction of judicial legitimacy. The start-up fund will partially finance the cost of contracting the execution of the telephone survey with a polling firm.
This study will make an important contribution to comparative literature but is also relevant to national reality. Given the controversy surrounding the peace process in general, and the gestation of the JEP in particular, its legitimacy, independence and ability to produce decisions that are accepted by the public are issues of crucial importance for the implementation of the Havana agreements. Studying the initial stages of this court in a rigorous manner will contribute to building a much-needed baseline to put into context and better understand an institution that will be central to the political dynamics of the coming years in Colombia.

Transitional justice, public opinion, judicial legitimacy, Colombia.