The 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 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 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 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 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 MoreA win for Uribe and the left wing
The law of electoral guarantees creates extensive opportunities for the growth and strengthening of the democratic left wing in Colombia.
Read MoreThe Constitution and Economic Model in Colombia
This text answers two questions: First, what consecrates the Colombian Constitution as an economic model? And second, what are the legal and practical effects of constitutional norms on economic politics?
Read MoreGlobal Governance and Labor Rights: Codes of Conduct and Anti-Sweatshop Struggles in Global Apparel Factories in México and Guatemala
Based on ethnographic work of the global clothing factories in Mexico and Guatemala, this article examines both the potential and the limitations of business conduct codes and other forms of rights and governance for the efficient protection of labor rights during times of globalization.
Read MoreThe impact of the re-election on politics and the Colombian institutions
This article analyzes the effects of the introduction of the immediate presidential re-election on the political practice and operation of Colombian institutions.
Read MoreGlobalization, judicial reform and democracy in Colombia and Latin America
This article completes a systematic poll of judicial reform projects in Latin America financed by multilateral agencies and of international cooperation in the last four decades. The article offers a detailed case study on Colombian reform, one of the most ambitious in the last four decades.
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