Correlational analysis of pretrial evidence and procedural guarantees according to professionals in the honduran criminal justice system

Abstract

Access to justice is a right inherent to every person within the criminal process, and anticipatory evidence is one of the mechanisms that guarantees it, which is the central theme of this article; the general objective is to analyze the relationship between the Gesell Chamber, the means of proof, and the protection of vulnerable victims against revictimization, as instruments that safeguard the integrity of testimony and reduce the emotional suffering of victims during criminal investigations. Using a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design at a descriptive-correlational level, the study characterized how legal professionals perceive this issue and examined how the normative framework relates to its practical implementation, without manipulating variables so that the findings would remain objective. The results show that, when anticipatory evidence is applied formally, it effectively guarantees the rights of both vulnerable victims and defendants; in practice, however, shortcomings remain, since the right to non-revictimization is not always fulfilled when the evidence is not gathered as a single interview, and hearings involving defendants are often held without their presence, which violates due process and equality between the parties; there are also cases in which anticipatory evidence is not applied according to its condition of urgency and necessity. Given this, protecting the rights of both parties calls for treating them equally and admitting this exceptional measure only when the loss of evidence makes it necessary, together with reforms that clearly define the rules for its practice.