The violation of the Adversarial Principle in the Victim's Statement in the Gesell Chamber: A Study in the Judicial District of Ayacucho, 2025 The violation of the adversarial principle in the victim's statement in the Gesell Chamber: A study in the judic

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine how the victim's statement in the Gesell Chamber violates the principle of contradiction in the criminal proceedings processed in the judicial district of Ayacucho during the year 2025. A qualitative approach was adopted, of a basic type, descriptive-explanatory level and non-experimental-cross-sectional design. The sample was made up of 13 legal operators (3 preparatory investigation judges, 3 provincial criminal prosecutors, 5 criminal trial lawyers and 2 psychologists facilitating the Gesell Chamber), as well as 7 transcription records of a single interview in the Gesell Chamber. Semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis were used as data collection techniques. The results showed that, in all the cases analyzed, the format of the proceeding was exclusively unidirectional: the psychologist asked questions and the victim answered without any intervention from the defendant's technical defense. There was no question by the defense attorney, no objections, no cross-examination, and no real-time control of the evidence. This absence of effective contradiction was verified even in those cases where the record recorded the formal presence of the defendant's defense counsel and in the proceedings classified as advance evidence with judicial conduct. It is concluded that the victim's statement in the Gesell Chamber violates the principle of adversarial proceedings in its three essential dimensions – cross-examination, equality of arms and control of evidence – configuring a structural, systematic and persistent affectation that compromises the constitutional validity of the evidence obtained and the legitimacy of the criminal process in the judicial district of Ayacucho. This research aimed to determine how the victim's statement in the Gesell Chamber violates the principle of contradiction in the criminal proceedings processed in the judicial district of Ayacucho during the year 2025. The study was developed under a qualitative approach, basic type, descriptive-explanatory level and non-experimental-cross-sectional design. The sample consisted of 13 legal operators (3 preparatory investigation judges, 3 provincial criminal prosecutors, 5 criminal litigation lawyers, and 2 psychologist facilitators of the Gesell Room), as well as 7 transcripts of individual interview records in the Gesell Room. Semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis were used as data collection techniques. The results showed that, in all the cases analyzed, the format of the procedure was exclusively unidirectional: the psychologist asked questions and the victim answered without the intervention of the defendant's technical defense. The defense attorney did not ask questions, or objections, or cross-examination, or real-time control of the evidence. This absence of effective contradiction was verified even in those cases in which the file recorded the formal presence of the defendant's defense attorney and in the proceedings classified as anticipated evidence with judicial conduct. It was concluded that the victim's statement in the Gesell Chamber violates the adversarial principle in its three essential dimensions – cross-examination, equality of arms and control of evidence – constituting a structural, systematic and persistent violation that compromises the constitutional validity of the evidence obtained and the legitimacy of the criminal process in the judicial district of Ayacucho.