Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Cajas-Sarria on the Protection of Property in Colombia's State of Siege

We have word that Mario Cajas-Sarria, Associate Professor and Director of the Law School of Icesi University, Cali, Colombia has published The Supreme Court and the Defense of Private Property under the State of Siege in the Times of the Constitution of 1886 in Vniversitas, the journal of law of the Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá), has released volume 66, issue134.  The article is published in Spanish as La Corte Suprema de Justicia y la Defensa de la Propiedad Privada Bajo el Estado de Sitio en Tiempos de la Constitución de 1886:
This research article analyzes two decisions of the Supreme Court of Colombia, as a constitutional tribunal under the Constitution of 1886, where it defended the right to private property against expropriations ordered by decrees of state of siege enacted by the President of the Republic; although, in these decisions it avoided ruling on the limits of the executive branch under the state of siege. Thus, by means of a political history of judicial review, this article explains the strategic behavior of the Court in two different stages: the first, in its inaugural moment as a constitutional tribunal in 1912, and the second, under the military rule of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in 1954. Those decisions show the political role of the Court, and the interdependence between politics and law in the construction of the judicial review in Colombia.