Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Cajas-Sarria on the History of the Supreme Court of Colombia

Mario Cajas-Sarria (Icesi University Law School- Universidad Icesi Facultad de Derecho) has posted "La Corte Suprema De Justicia De Colombia, 1886-1910: De Juez De La Regeneración a Juez Constitucional" ("The Colombian Supreme Court, 1886-1910: From the Court of the Regeneration to Constitutional Court"). The article appeared in Volume 14 of Historia Constitucional (2013). Here's the English-language abstract:
The first part of the article re-frames the debate about the origins of the judicial review in Colombia, taking into account the constitutions that established notions about defending the Constitution, the contexts in which these arose, and the institutional design and implications for the exercise of judicial review of the Constitution.

The second section tells the history of the Supreme Court of Colombia since the National Constitution of 1886 to the constitutional amendment of 1910. It explores the political context in which the Court was established to be the guardian of the political-legal regime of the conservative Regeneración, and the experience of the Court in different moments of a trajectory where she started being a Court of Cassation to become a constitutional Court. This narrative shows the weakness of evolutionist approaches that assume the creation of the actio popularis (unconstitutionality) as an unavoidable continuation and development of a supposed "constitutional judicial review" established since 1886, and even of those who claim that such a judicial review had started a long time ago.
The full paper is available here.