Defamation and Online Harassment Laws in Colombia

Colombia is a civil law country. Its Constitution guarantees the right to a good name (Article 15) and the right to honor (Article 21), and leaves it to the law to decide how honor is protected. The main tools are the crimes of injuria and calumnia in the Criminal Code (Articles 220 to 228) and the general Civil Code rule that anyone who harms another through an offense or fault must pay compensation (Article 2341).

Sources1Political Constitution of Colombia, Articles 15 and 212Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Articles 220 to 2283Civil Code, Article 2341

Making dishonoring accusations against someone (injuria) carries 16 to 54 months in prison plus a fine, and falsely accusing someone of conduct defined as a crime (calumnia) carries 16 to 72 months plus a fine. Repeating or republishing someone else's injuria or calumnia, or phrasing it as 'people say', carries the same penalties, which increase by one sixth to one half when the statement is made through the media, another channel of mass distribution or a public meeting. The Constitutional Court upheld these offenses in ruling C-442 of 2011 and upheld their prison terms in ruling C-487 of 2023, and prosecution generally requires a formal complaint (querella) from the victim.

Sources2Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Articles 220, 221, 222 and 2234Constitutional Court, Ruling C-442 of 20115Constitutional Court, Ruling C-487 of 20236Code of Criminal Procedure (Law 906 of 2004), Article 74

Colombian law does not set separate deadlines for written and spoken defamation. Because injuria and calumnia generally require a complaint from the victim, the complaint must be filed within six months after the offense; if force majeure or an unforeseeable event kept the victim from learning of it, the six months run from when that obstacle ends. Civil compensation claims follow the Civil Code: a claim against the person who committed the offense expires within the period the Criminal Code sets for the penalty to lapse, a claim against responsible third parties expires three years after the act, and ordinary civil actions generally expire after ten years, so the civil deadline depends on the facts.

Sources6Code of Criminal Procedure (Law 906 of 2004), Articles 73 and 743Civil Code, Article 23583Civil Code, Article 2536 (as amended by Law 791 of 2002)

The Constitution guarantees the right to have information corrected on fair terms (Article 20). Under Article 225 of the Criminal Code, a person accused of injuria or calumnia is not liable if they voluntarily retract before the first-instance judgment, provided the retraction is published at their own cost in the same medium and with the same features as the original statement (or in the way the judge directs in other cases); if the retraction is made public before the victim files a complaint, criminal proceedings cannot begin. For social media posts between private individuals, the Constitutional Court held in ruling SU-420 of 2019 that a tutela action is generally available only after the affected person has asked the author to remove or correct the post, has used the platform's reporting process where its rules allow one, and shows the case has constitutional relevance.

Sources1Political Constitution of Colombia, Article 202Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Article 2257Constitutional Court, Ruling SU-420 of 2019

The Constitution protects the freedom to express opinions and to share and receive truthful and impartial information, and it bans censorship (Article 20). In criminal cases, a person is not liable for injuria or calumnia if they prove the accusations were true, but the Code does not allow proof of truth for accusations about someone's sexual, marital or family life or about the victim of a sexual offense, a rule the Constitutional Court has upheld only under conditions (Article 224). Judges may also excuse one or both sides when the insults were mutual (Article 227), and insults made by parties or their lawyers in court filings or hearings that they do not make public are handled only through disciplinary measures (Article 228).

Sources1Political Constitution of Colombia, Article 202Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Articles 224, 227 and 228

Colombia has no general online harassment offense, but several laws can apply to conduct online. Article 134B of the Criminal Code, titled 'hostigamiento' (harassment), punishes promoting or instigating acts aimed at causing physical or moral harm to a person or group because of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, political or philosophical views, sex, sexual orientation, disability or other discriminatory reasons, with 12 to 36 months in prison; Article 210-A punishes using a position of power or authority to harass or pursue someone for unwanted sexual purposes, with one to three years. Separately, Law 1620 of 2013, a school coexistence law rather than a criminal statute, defines school cyberbullying as intimidation through deliberate use of the internet, social networks, mobile phones or online games to inflict continued psychological abuse.

Sources2Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Article 134B (as amended by Law 1752 of 2015)2Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Article 210-A8Law 1620 of 2013, Article 2

There is no offense named doxxing, but Article 269F of the Criminal Code punishes anyone who, without authorization and for their own benefit or someone else's, obtains, compiles, sends, discloses or uses personal data held in files, databases or similar media. The penalty is 48 to 96 months in prison and a fine of 100 to 1,000 monthly minimum wages.

Source2Criminal Code (Law 599 of 2000), Article 269F (added by Law 1273 of 2009)