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The tragedy of the farce
César Rodríguez criticizes antiabortion groups and the Constitutional Court for not knowing that its actions are massive violations of women’s rights, which has been revealed by recent statistics on sexual violence.
Read MoreThe block of constitutionality in Colombia: jurisprudential analysis and a trial of the doctrinal systematization.
The text analyzes the evolution of the block of constitutionality in Colombia and it evaluates comparative rights and shows the importance of incorporating it into the national code of human rights standards. After explaining the view of this figure, the text describes its evolution in the Colombian constitutional jurisprudence and analyzes the main conceptual and legal issues that still pose problems, proposing doctrinal solutions that favor application by national judges of the international law of the human rights.
Read MoreBlock of constitutionality, human rights and the new penal procedure
The text synthesizes the reach of the block of constitutionality in Colombia, including that permit of the internal application of international human rights law. After proposing a doctrinal systematization of the reach of this figure, the text samples some of Colombia’s penal applications.
Read MoreThe uni-diversalidad of the human rights: confliction of rights, concepts of democracy and constitutional interpretation.
The article shows the relationship between the practice of the constitutional interpretation and the problems of the fundamentalism of universality of human rights. The article does a systematic study of Colombian, German, and American constitutional jurisprudence that has resolved the tensions between the right to privacy and the right to freedom of information. It also samples different solutions to the tensions of constitutional democracy. The article maintains that the practical harmonization of those constitutional tensions is a possible to reach through dialogue, a certain universality of human rights and to understand them there needs to be a respect for the diversity of perspectives.
Read MoreThe Guardianship Reform: Adjust or dismantle?
This article debates the three large controversies stirred up by the guardianship reform. (1) It asks in what measure guardianship has been a factor of congestion and what to do with the possible congestion that it has caused. (2) It asks in what way legal action has caused legal insecurity and has affected the court. (3) Finally it asks whether or not reform is necessary for maintaining guardianship for social rights. The article analyzes these three points and tries to review the situation and the terms of debate in respect to each issue in order to offer perspectives about a solution.
Read MoreThe Constitutional Court and Control of Presidential Extraordinary Powers in Colombia
The paper analyzes the attempts of Colombian Constitutional Court to control the abuse of presidential emergency powers in the last decade. After describing the dilemmas that governmental emergency powers pose to constitutional regimes and explaining some particularities of Colombian (a democracy under permanent emergency), the article focuses on the efforts of the Constitutional Court to exercise a ?material? control of the declaration of a state of emergency by the President. According to this legal doctrine, it is the duty of the Court to analyze if the facts invoked by the government constitute a crisis severe enough to justify the use of emergency powers. The article shows that the Court has exercised this material control in a quite strict way and has nullified several declarations of a state of emergency by different presidents. The article tries then to analyze how this form of judicial review has been possible in a country like Colombia, with a precarious democracy and a cruel armed conflict. The article describes also the impact of this form of judicial control in Colombian politics and offer some more general conclusions based on Colombian experience.
Read MoreThe Crossroads of Justice
This article gives a general overview of the situation of Colombian justice. It combines paradoxical characteristics since there is a doubtless prominence but also profound deficiencies. It explains the existence of problems with Colombian justice and why it is found at a crossroads, where reforms could be approved that strengthen democratic transformations or on the contrary could strengthen authoritarian regime.
Read MoreJustices of the Peace and Informal justice: a conceptual approximation of their potential and their limitations
This article analyzes the reasons for the boom in informal justice in recent years within Colombia and Latin America. It shows the democratic potential of informal justice because of their participatory character that favors peace and democracy. It also examines their antidemocratic risks because they channel social demands. The article proposes to surpass an ingenuous and total acceptance of these justices and to design strategies that that deliberately fortify their democratic potential and minimize the risk. The article finishes by showing the important role that informal justice can have in the judicial system.
Read MoreComparative Study of Transitional Justice
The article offers a comparative study of the process of transitional justice as adopted by various countries. By exploring the unique contexts, dilemmas, and pardoning systems, the study examines the methods of applying transitional justice. Finally, the author advocates for Colombia to embrace transitional model founded on responsible pardoning and democratic legitimacy.
Read MoreTransitional and Restorative Justice: Complements and Tensions
The study explores the benefits and drawbacks of applying the framework of restorative justice as the dominant paradigm in order to address problems presented by transitional justice in Colombia. The investigation is timely as the idea that transitional processes should be founded on restorative justice is becoming increasingly popular. By exploring the original concepts of the two branches of justice, the author analyzes several complementary characteristics between the two and also analyzes the important tensions that exist between them. The findings highlights limitations that exist in the restorative justice approach as when applied to a transitional time. Ultimately, the author concludes that the processes of transitional justice, especially those in Colombia, should contain punishment for those responsible for serious human rights violations, and therefore, only they should only contemplate using restorative justice in limited situations.
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