United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Central America and the Caribbean

Crime Theory Workshop in Panama and Chiriqui

Panama, 18 December 2019. Importance of the theory of crime, conduct (action and omission), objective typicity and elements of guilt are some of the topics addressed in the Crime Theory Workshop offered by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Central America and the Caribbean (UNODC ROPAN), through the project Consolidation of the Criminal Procedure Reform in Panama offered in the provinces of Panama and Chiriquí.

This training was aimed at public defenders and victims' defenders, prosecutors and judges in Panama and Chiriquí, and was delivered by international consultant Iván Fabio Meini Méndez.

New learnings
"A novel concept that I learned in the workshop was the area of competence and the figure of the guarantor, in terms of how it responds and what are its limits to criminal liability," says Shanida López Barrios, Defensora de Oficio Circuital.
Yemajara Pedroza, Judge of Guarantees of the Second Judicial Circuit of Panama, believes that, from her position, as "controller of acts of investigation and from the beginning of the accusation, I must analyze in depth aspects that can be discarded from the beginning.

For Roummel Salerno, Public Defender, a learning acquired in the workshop was the theory of risk "insofar as it gives us a different vision to project an argument in the legal debate of the hearing or criminal process as such.
Yanela Romero, a judicial official who also attended the workshop, considers that the training was of the highest level, both in terms of content and teaching. In his opinion, the main concept dealt with was "the identification of the elements of the crime in specific cases". In the exercise of his functions he will see the benefits of the workshop in the exercise of defense.