Blog to the Supporters of “Merit Pays”
The programs “Merit Pays” (Spanish “Ser Pilo Paga”) that the national government recently inaugurated has been met with differing reactions. The debate deals with two positions: on one hand, there are those that highlight its benefits: the program promotes the social mobility of a talented group of young people while it also installs greater diversity and inclusion in private universities. On the other hand, there are those who, like us, are not so convinced and argue that the program directs public funds to the private sector instead of strengthening public tertiary education and that it restricts access to university education to an exceptional minority of high school graduates, excluding the majority.
Read MoreMinistry of Mines: Accepted but Not Obeyed
One of the Santos administration’s first good moves was to undo the merging of unrelated ministries during Uribe’s presidency, like the union of the Ministry of Environment and Housing. However, a recent law confirms that the Ministry of Environment is once again being absorbed, this time by the Ministry of Mines.
Read MoreLand Restitution in 2015: On Trial by Fire
The evaluation of land restitution policies ought to look beyond the numbers and identify the challenges that it faces.
Read MoreStained with the Same Grease
Palm oil production creates two main problems: one environmental and one social.
Read MorePeace and Referendum
It could be that the Public Prosecutor is correct in saying that a Peace Agreement with the FARC does not legally require a referendum. However, it is necessary considering democratic political legitimacy.
Read MoreThe Meritorious Students’ Scholarships
Last year I wrote a column in which I told Victor’s story, a young man from Aguadas (Caldas) whom I know since he was a little boy.
Read MoreWire-Tapping to Be Evaluated by the OECD?
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) evaluators have arrived to analyze if Colombia has good practices and can join the rich countries’ club.
Read MoreMerit Pays
The start of the government programs “Merit Pays” (Spanish “Ser Pilo Paga”) which gives university scholarships to the very best low-income students reminded me of the story of a young Gabriel García Márquez when he arrived from the Caribbean coast to Bogotá.
Read MoreThe Victims in the Peace Process
Victims’ participation in the peace negotiation roundtable between the FARC and the national government is an iconic event for our country. Many have minimized the importance of this participation without knowing it is unprecedented in other similar negotiation processes.
Read MoreThe International Criminal Court’s Promise of Justice
Responsibility for the success or failure of the Rome system depends on all the actors involved
Read MoreThe rules of sexual harassment (II)
How do sexual harrasers get away with it?
Read MoreA breeding rejoice!
The law that extends maternity leave to 14 weeks, although successful, is not sufficient to ensure the welfare of children, family protection, and gender equity.
Read MoreSuing the justice
“I will sue the state,” said Wilson Borja, former Congressman, when he learned that the Supreme Court would not follow the proceedings against him due to FARC-politics.
Read MoreLife imprisonment: punitive populism without arguments
THE INITIATIVE to hold a referendum to impose life imprisonment for certain crimes against children is not only unconstitutional, as I showed in my previous column, but it is also a proposal without any basis.
Read MoreIt’s time for peace after 40 years of war on drugs.
After 40 years of “war on drugs”, Dejusticia, together with other organizations that are part of the Latin American chapter of the International Consortium on Drug Policy (IDPC), claim the democratic right of all peoples of the continent to fix everything that has not worked in the war on drugs. We call for the end of the purely criminal and police approach, and believe on democratically building one in which emphasis is placed on social development, education, universal health coverage, freedom, and the rights of all people.
To read the complete letter please download the PDF file.
Read MoreCultural rights in the city
This book gathers the lectures presented on the Seminary of Cultural Rights in the City, which took place in Bogotá the 23rd and 24rd of november of 2010 and which constituted the stage for reflexion about a cultural policy with emphasis on human rights for the capital.
The seminar intended to give elements on two principal points: the content and the reach of the cultural rights in conformity of the international and national legal frames and the lineaments to elaborate, implement and evaluate the public policy oriented to guarantee these rights.
The reflexion about these two points had as a direct reference Bogotá, a city that not only faces the complex differences of a globalized world, but also those of a pluri-ethnical country and marked by a long lasting armed conflict, as the colombian one.
Even though this book si therefor oriented to provide elements for the debate about the cultural policy in Bogotá, the reflections that it contains have also a more general reach. The reader will therefore find, on one side, a more panoramic vision on the normative joint of cultural rights and the principal contemporary debates related to the recognition and guarantee of them and, on the other hand, the guidelines to think about public policies that approach legal rights that result as a useful resource not only in the frame of culture but also in all those of public intervention.
Read MoreBe a man!
Immediate action is needed from the authorities to stop the degrading and discriminating treatment against LGBT people in prisons.
Read MoreSexual harassment (I)
News about sexual predators beset us. And I can’t get them out of my head.
Read MoreA very dangerous Bill
The procedure to restore land to victims has not come out of the oven, when a new bill to formalize property titles en masse and at full speed appears in the Congress. A careful legal analysis turns on the alarm, because everything indicates that there are contradictions.
Read MoreWhat to do with immediate presidential re-election?
In the commemoration of the 20 years of the 1991 Constitution, the president Cesar Gaviria said the worst thing that had happened to the Constitution was the reform allowing presidential reelection.
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