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Uruguay The Criminal Justice System
The constitution provided that judicial power be vested
in
the Supreme Court of Justice
(see The Judiciary
, ch. 4).
Immediately below the Supreme Court of Justice were six
appellate
courts, including the appellate court on criminal matters.
Its
judgment was by unanimous decision of the three justices.
The
next courts below the appellate courts were the courts of
first
instance, or lawyer courts (juzgados letrados), the
principal courts of first instance for criminal felony
cases.
Montevideo had ten courts of first instance to hear
criminal
cases, the departments of Paysandú and Salto had two each,
and
each of the other departments had one. The lower justice
of the
peace courts heard minor cases and had original
jurisdiction over
most misdemeanors.
The nation's judicial system was based on the
Napoleonic Code
of 1804. Once a suspect was identified, the constitution
required
issuance of a written arrest warrant unless the suspect
was
caught during the commission of a crime. By law a suspect
could
be held incommunicado for twenty-four hours, after which
he or
she had to be brought before a judge to answer charges.
Judges
then had twenty-four hours to decide whether to release or
to
charge the individual. Once charges were brought, an
accused had
the right to legal counsel; a public defender was
appointed to
represent those accused who could not afford counsel. If
the
accused was charged with a crime carrying a penalty of at
least
two years, he or she could be confined during the
investigation
of the case. Bond was allowed in such cases, provided the
individual was not deemed a danger to society or likely to
flee.
The constitution required that all trials be held in
public
to the extent that they had to be open and give a public
statement of the charge. According to the Code of Criminal
Procedure, however, arguments by the prosecution and the
defense
were submitted to the judge in writing, and these written
documents were not usually made public. The defense
attorney had
the right to review all written documents submitted to the
court.
The constitution did not provide protection against selfincrimination , and at trial an accused could be required
to
answer any questions from the judge. Based on the written
statements submitted, the judge handed down his or her
decision
(usually without seeing the accused parties in person);
there was
no provision for trial by jury.
In the second half of the 1980s, several jurists and
human
rights groups suggested numerous changes to the judicial
procedure to increase efficiency and fairness. Among the
proposed
reforms were the institution of trial by jury and
tightened
supervision of pretrial investigations, but as of 1990
none of
these changes had been made.
The principal source of the nation's criminal law was
the
Penal Code of 1889, which was amended in 1934 and
contained three
books. The first book concerned general principles of the
law and
the definition of offenses, which were divided according
to
gravity into felonies and misdemeanors. The first book
also
defined various punishments, which comprised incarceration
in a
penitentiary or prison, exile, deprivation of political
rights,
disqualification or suspension of professional
qualifications,
and fines. It also discussed extenuating circumstances for
a
defendant, such as age, intoxication, or insanity. The
second
book concerned felony crimes, including crimes against the
sovereignty of the state, the political order, public
order,
public administration, and public health. The remaining
articles
in the second book dealt with crimes against persons and
property. The third book concerned misdemeanor offenses.
In June
1989, the Penal Code was amended to provide sanctions
against
committing or inciting hatred or other forms of violence
against
persons based on race, color, religion, or national or
ethnic
origin.
In addition to the Penal Code, several other statutes
covered
criminal offenses. Drug legislation was covered in a 1974
law
that regulated the commercial sale and use of controlled
substances and penalized drug abuse and drug trafficking.
Juvenile offenders were treated under a 1934 code for
minors that
established a juvenile court in Montevideo with
jurisdiction over
persons under the age of eighteen; in 1990 there were four
such
courts in Montevideo.
The Ministry of the Interior supervised the federal
prisons
and departmental jails. All nineteen departments
maintained jails
in which accused persons were temporarily housed pending
trial
and sentencing. All prisoners sentenced to confinement
were held
in one of three federal prisons or at the work colony at
San
José. Two of the federal prisons were for men, and the
third was
for women. The work colony was designed to aid in the
rehabilitation of prisoners for whom agricultural work was
believed to be helpful.
Although the three federal prisons existed
independently of
each other, a single entity in the ministry administered
them. A
prerelease facility housed prisoners about to complete
their term
of imprisonment. These individuals could bring their
families to
live with them until their final discharge. The prisoners
themselves were in charge of the facility under the
guidance of
trained instructors. The prison area was surrounded by a
wide
moat. The prerelease facility was outside the moat. Visits
to
minimum security inmates took place in the open; medium
security
inmates were separated from visitors by a glass partition;
and
those in maximum security were separated by reinforced
glass
partitions, with telephones for communication.
The Penal Code provided that inmates of minimum
security
institutions could be employed in such activities as road
building, quarrying, and similar public improvement
projects. The
obligation to work was established by law, and work was
mandatory
for prisoners who had not been tried. Prisoners earned
small
amounts for their labor; these sums were paid upon
release.
Prison labor was aimed at rehabilitating the individual, a
principle no doubt derived from the country's tradition of
extensive social services.
* * *
As of late 1990, no definitive studies dealing
comprehensively with national security matters in
contemporary
Uruguay had been published. A general treatment of modern
Uruguayan political life, touching on the military and its
place
in the national life, can be found in Martin Weinstein's
Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads. The most
complete
coverage of the history and development of the armed
forces is
contained in the section "Uruguay" in Adrian J. English's
Regional Defence Profile, No. 1: Latin America. For
development of the armed forces since 1980, the reader
must
search through issues of the Latin American Weekly
Report,
the Latin America Report produced by the Joint
Publications Research Service, and the Daily Report:
Latin
America put out by the Foreign Broadcast Information
Service.
Current order-of-battle information is available in the
International Institute of Strategic Studies' excellent
annual,
The Military Balance. The best overview of
conditions of
public order is contained in the sections on Uruguay in
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, a report
submitted annually by the United States Department of
State to
the United States Congress. (For further information and
complete
citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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