Sistematización de experiencia en el contexto profesional. Psicología Jurídica aplicada a los procesos de familia y los enfoques diferenciales en la administración de justicia

Abstract

The increasing complexity of family conflicts requires legal practitioners and psychology professionals to understand the relational, emotional, and social dynamics underlying judicial proceedings.

In Colombia, the transition toward more rights-protective models of justice has increased the need for interdisciplinary interventions capable of providing technical input for judicial decision-making. Matters such as the custody of children and adolescents, child support proceedings, domestic violence, the legal capacity of persons with disabilities, and gender-based violence require analyses that go beyond a strictly legal interpretation and are guided by human rights and Colombia’s constitutional block.

Within this context, Legal Psychology has emerged as a fundamental discipline for understanding complex family-related phenomena and producing specialized knowledge. Such knowledge enables specialists in legal and forensic psychology—and even holders of master’s degrees in Legal Psychology—to better focus their professional practice. Their work directly contributes to enabling judges, prosecutors, public defenders, trial attorneys, and other legal practitioners to make decisions more consistent with the principles of comprehensive protection, the best interests of the child, equality, and non-discrimination.

This is essential for mitigating institutional violence, which, in addition to harming citizens, adversely affects the State’s financial resources. Institutional violence in Colombia is not limited to the disproportionate use of physical force; its most invisible and far-reaching manifestations occur through omission, procedural discrimination, and the failure to apply differential approaches. When a public official adopts a one-size-fits-all approach and disregards individual circumstances related to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, disability, or socioeconomic status, the State ceases to act as a guarantor of rights and instead becomes a secondary perpetrator against vulnerable populations. In a country marked by profound structural inequalities, training in differential approaches is not an optional or supplementary form of professional development, but an indispensable operational requirement for mitigating revictimization and guaranteeing meaningful access to justice, healthcare, and comprehensive reparation.

For example, the main obstacle faced by women and the LGBTIQ+ population lies in the initial assistance provided by Family Commissions and prosecutors’ offices, where a lack of institutional sensitivity results in coordination failures, impunity, and victims being effectively forced to abandon their complaints (Office of the Inspector General of Colombia [Procuraduría General de la Nación], n.d.). The situation is not significantly different for children and adolescents. Adultcentrism remains a largely unaddressed concept, while research on childhood within the judicial system reveals that minors are subjected to repeated interviews and inappropriate questioning, amounting to “procedural institutional mistreatment” that causes severe psychological harm (Ámbito Jurídico, 2026). Moreover, children are not adequately heard in decisions that affect them, with due regard for their intersectional circumstances, as required by Colombia’s constitutional block.

The high courts have issued several binding rulings requiring State entities to transform their methods of service delivery. Failure to train personnel may therefore constitute noncompliance with constitutional judgments. For example, in Judgment T-025 of 2004, the Constitutional Court established that assistance provided to internally displaced persons and victims of the armed conflict must mandatorily and intersectionally incorporate gender, ethnic, and life-course approaches (Constitutional Court, 2004). Similarly, in Judgment T-064 of 2023, the Court held that judicial and administrative authorities are required to adjudicate and intervene from a gender perspective. It warned that sexist stereotypes and the failure of public offices to provide victims with adequate information undermine due process guarantees (Constitutional Court, 2023). Transitional justice guidelines likewise emphasize that territorial peace is unattainable if State institutions continue applying generic templates to complex multicultural contexts while disregarding the differentiated impacts of violence.