Careo is the act and result of confronting: making two individuals testify at the same time, or one subject testify before another, to collate the sayings and discover the truth about an issue. The verb also refers to guiding the cattle in a certain direction.
According to DigoPaul, confrontations are frequent in procedural law. Its purpose is to clarify issues that are contradictory, often motivated by the statements of those who intervene in the process in question.
In general, the confrontation serves as a means of proof that complements other tests. The confrontation can take place between a defendant and the accuser or between witnesses, for example. The value of the confrontation is determined by the jury, the court or the judge.
It should be noted that, in certain cases, the confrontation does not clarify an issue, but makes a contradiction even more evident. From a confrontation it can be established that a person incurred a false testimony.
Take the case of a murder investigation. A witness claims that, at the time of the crime, he saw the suspect at the scene, walking with a bag in his hand. The defendant, on the other hand, maintains that at that time he was sleeping at home. Through a confrontation between the two, the judge will seek to determine who is telling the truth and who is lying.
The confrontation, in this context, is a mechanism that belongs to the procedural systems of the inquisitorial type, as well as to the so-called reformed inquisitorial systems, in which deed is more important than orality. If the confrontation is carried out in a reformed inquisitorial process, then it is also common that it is allowed to do so throughout the stage of investigation or criminal investigation.
Although the parties have the right to request a confrontation, it is important to note that the final decision may be made by the court or the judge, and this depends on the legal system in which the case is handled.
Outside the field of law, confrontation is a very useful tool to resolve conflicts in an orderly and non-violent way. One of its definitions says that “it is a special extension of testimony”, that is, we can consider it a complement, a resource that enhances the action of witnesses and allows us to analyze the data presented by them with greater precision.
One of the cases in which confrontation can be very beneficial to avoid aggressiveness is a problem between neighbors of a community. Suppose a person claims that his upstairs neighbor leaves the taps running longer than necessary with the intention of weakening the foundation and causing it to leak; if this is not dealt with civilly, in the best of cases they would all end up in the nearest police station. Therefore, proposing a confrontation between witnesses at a meeting can offer a peaceful solution.
In the autonomous community of Andalusia, in Spain, there are structures known as acequias de careo. These are works that allow meltwater to be channeled from the top of a mountain to fishing grounds so that it can infiltrate. This water, further down, surfaces again and becomes a source of traditional irrigation channels. The technique is called facing.
The feeding of the acequia de careo comes from two sources: the main one, which is generally located where the rivers or ravines are born, and the remnants, contributions from the ice melt drag. For its construction, a hole is usually made in the ground with a slope that does not exceed 3% and waterproof it with a type of clay called launa.
