Antiprocesalism in the Colombian Legal System

Authors

  • Ana Bejarano Ricaurte Universidad de Los Andes

    Abogada litigante en la firma Bejarano Abogados en la ciudad de Bogotá, Colombia, manejando asuntos de naturaleza civil, comercial, familia, penal y contencioso administrativos. Abogada de la Universidad de Los Andes en Bogotá y Maestra en Leyes de la Universidad de Harvard, en Cambridge EE.UU. Profesora de la cátedra de Argumentación en Procesos Civiles en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Los Andes. Semillera (2010) y Miembro del Instituto Colombiano de Derecho Procesal (2012). En el pasado se desempeñó como Auxiliar Judicial en la Corte Constitucional (2011-2013) y fue la Secretaria Privada del Ministro de Justicia, Yesid Reyes (2014-2016). Coordinó la práctica Pro Bono de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Los Andes y actualmente se desempeña como directora del Programa de Formación Judicial en la misma Universidad. Investigadora de políticas públicas judiciales, descongestión, métodos alternativos de resolución de conflictos, empiricismo y justicia.

Keywords:

Antiprocesalism, “illegal decisions don’t bound the judge”, judicial system, judge, court order, invalidation of procedures, clash of Courts, Colombian Constitutional Court, Colombian Supreme Court, Colombian Council of State, suspension of Procedures

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20th century the Colombian legal system has displayed a theory called ‘antiprocesalism’, according to which judges are not bound by their own decisions if they are so mistaken, so they can be considered as illegal. When this happens, judges can ignore those decisions. There is currently no consensus regarding the practical application of this theory, whether the judge can automatically ignore its own decisions, or whether the mistake must be pointed out by the parties. There is also discussion regarding when can those decisions be ignored related to their enforceability and if this theory can be applied to any type of judicial decision. This uncertainty has produced the irregular application of this theory, sometimes even damaging the right to due process, specially coming from lowercircuit judges. Still, current and past decisions from the nation’s highest courts present some viable criteria for the safe and uniform application of this theory in legal practice. Those criteria are studied and presented in this essay.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2019-10-14

How to Cite

Bejarano Ricaurte, A. (2019). Antiprocesalism in the Colombian Legal System. Derecho & Sociedad, (52), 255–274. Retrieved from https://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/derechoysociedad/article/view/21227

Issue

No. 52 (2019)

Section

Misceláneas

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Derecho & Sociedad

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.