Challenges of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Latin America

Abstract

In the last two decades criminal procedure systems in most countries of the Latin America have undergone significant changes. One major component of these has been the transfer of authority to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has become the body responsible for criminal prosecution.Before the reform, the Public Prosecutor’s Office was either a relatively weak or even inexistent institution or was strong but focused basically on ensuring the legality of prosecution actions by issuing legal recommendations and/or presenting appeals in important cases.