PROSECUTORIAL CERTAINTY, DISMISSAL AND STANDARD OF CONVICTION TO FILE AN INDICTMENT IN THE PERUVIAN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE SYSTEM

Abstract

This case has already been resolved by the ordinary Peruvian Criminal Justice with a not guilty verdict. However, in the past an extraordinary appeal for cassation was filed by the defense in the case. The appeal challenged the decision of the Second Criminal Court of Appeals of the Superior Court of Justice of La Libertad to revoke the dismissal order and order the continuation of the trial for the crime of generic falsification. Resolving the matter, the Permanent Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Republic of Peru issued Cassation Judgment 760-2016, La Libertad, on March 20, 2017, in which it established case doctrine on the “legal nature of the elements of conviction and their sufficiency in the prosecutorial accusation” and one other matter that is not of interest here (felony of induction to vote). Only in relation to the examination of the sufficiency of the elements of conviction to support a prosecutorial accusation the present paper revolves and, as will be seen below, from the presentation of the jurisprudential doctrine established in case (I) will come out its implications (II), both dogmatic and linked to the forensic practice, it is important to highlight that such judgment is not only erroneous, but also ends up being elusive in relation to what should have been defined in the clearest possible way: how to make the examination of the sufficiency (or insufficiency) of the conviction elements that support the prosecutorial accusation.