Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-03T20:57:48.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ideational Origins of Progressive Judicial Activism: The Colombian Constitutional Court and the Right to Health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rodrigo M. Nunes
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do some constitutional transitions trigger the emergence of progressive judicial activism? This article addresses this question through an analysis of the creation of the Colombian Constitutional Court and its subsequent activism toward rights in general and the right to health in particular. This research suggests that ideational variables are crucial to explain this outcome. On the one hand, the Constitutional Court's behavior reflects the dominance of the institutional conception that it is the judiciary's role to help fulfill the promises of the constitutional text. On the other, programmatic beliefs about the relationship between the rule of law and market-driven economic growth led powerholders to create the court and appoint judges with this orientation. The emergence of progressive judicial activism in Colombia, this analysis suggests, was the unexpected outcome of purposeful political choices made by proponents of neoliberal economics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2010 , pp. 67 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abella, Aída, Emliani Román, Raimundo, Toro, Germán, Uribe Vargas, Diego, and Mercedes Carranza, María. 1991. Proyecto de nueva carta de derechos, deberes, garantías y libertades. Gaceta Constitucional no. 51, April 16. Bogotá : República de Colombia, Imprenta Nacional.Google Scholar
Alarcón, Luis Fernando. 1994. La política económica de Barco: una visión personal. In El gobierno Barco: política, economía y desarrollo social en Colombia (1986–1990), ed. Deas, Malcom and Ossa, Carlos. Bogotá : Fedesarrollo/Fondo Cultural Cafetero. 433–54.Google Scholar
Asociación Nacional de Instituciones Financieras (ANIF). 1991. Subsiste el futuro: constitución y política económica. Bogotá : ANIF.Google Scholar
Arango, Rodolfo, and Lemaitre, Julieta. 2002. Jurisprudencia constitucional sobre el derecho al mínimo vital. Estudios Ocasionales CIJUS. Bogotá : Ediciones Uniandes, Facultad de Derecho.Google Scholar
Archer, Ronald P., and Soberg Shugart, Matthew. 1997. The Unrealized Potential of Presidential Dominance in Colombia. In Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, ed. Mainwaring, Scott and Shugart, . New York : Cambridge University Press. 110–59.Google Scholar
Berman, Sheri. 1998. The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cepeda, Manuel José. 1985. Las relaciones entre el presidente y la corte durante la emergencia económica: un semidiós enfrentando a un monstruo. In Estado de sitio y emergencia económica, ed. Cepeda, . Bogotá : Contraloría General de la República. 43–74.Google Scholar
Cepeda, Manuel José. 1992. Los derechos fundamentales en la Constitución de 1991. Bogotá : Temis.Google Scholar
Cepeda, Manuel José. 1993. La constituyente por adentro: mitos y realidades. Bogotá : Presidencia de la República, Consejería para el Desarrollo de la Constitución.Google Scholar
Cepeda, Manuel José 2007a. Polémicas constitucionales. Bogotá : Legis.Google Scholar
Cepeda, Manuel José. 2007b. Former constitutional adviser to President César Gaviria; former Constitutional Court Justice (2001–2009), Colombia . Author interview. Bogotá, April 10.Google Scholar
Cepeda Ulloa, Fernando. 1994. Dirección política de la reforma económica en Colombia. Bogotá : FONADE/Departamento Nacional de Planeación.Google Scholar
Chávez, Rebecca Bill. 2004. The Evolution of Judicial Autonomy in Argentina: Establishing the Rule of Law in an Ultrapresidential System. Journal of Latin American Studies 36: 451–78.Google Scholar
Cifuentes, Eduardo. 2007. Former Constitutional Court Justice (1991–2001), Colombia. Author interview. Bogotá, February.Google Scholar
Comisión Colombiana de Juristas. 2003. El papel de la Corte Constitucional y la tutela en la realización del estado social de derecho. Bogotá : Comisión Colombiana de Juristas.Google Scholar
Comisión de Racionalización del Gasto y de las Finanzas Públicas. 1997. Informe final. Bogotá : Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público.Google Scholar
Corte Constitucional y Consejo Superior de la Judicatura. 1999. Estadísticas de la tutela. Bogotá : Corte Constitucional.Google Scholar
Dávila Ladrón de Guevara, Andrés. 2002. Democracia pactada: el Frente Nacional y el proceso constituyente del 91. Bogotá : Alfaomega.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De la Calle, Humberto. 2004. Contra todas las apuestas: historia íntima de la Constituyente de 1991. Bogotá : Planeta.Google Scholar
De la Calle, Humberto. 2009. Former Minister of Government, Presidency of César Gaviria; former Supreme Court Justice, Colombia. Author interview. Bogotá, March 3.Google Scholar
Del Pueblo, Defensoría. 2004. La tutela y el derecho a la salud: causas de la tutela en salud. Bogotá : Defensoría del Pueblo.Google Scholar
Del Pueblo, Defensoría. 2007. La tutela y el derecho a la salud: período 2003–2005. Bogotá : Defensoría del Pueblo.Google Scholar
Dix, Robert H. 1967. Colombia: The Political Dimensions of Change. New Haven : Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dugas, John. 1993. El desarrollo de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente. In La Constitución de 1991: ¿Un pacto político viable? ed. Dugas, . Bogotá : Departamento de Ciéncias Políticas, Universidad de Los Andes. 45–76.Google Scholar
Edwards, Sebastián, and Steiner, Roberto. 2008. La revolución incompleta: las reformas de Gaviria. Bogotá : Norma.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles. 1998. The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John A., and Kramer, Larry D.. 2002. Independent Judges, Dependent Judiciary: Institutionalizing Judicial Restraint. New York University Law Review 77: 962–1039.Google Scholar
Finkel, Jodi. 2005. Judicial Reform as Insurance Policy: Mexico in the 1990s. Latin American Politics and Society 47, 1 (Spring): 87–113.Google Scholar
Garcés Lloreda, María Teresa, and María Velasco Guerrero, José. 1991. Ponencia sobre control de constitucionalidad, Corte Suprema de Justicia y Consejo de Estado. Gaceta Constitucional no. 36, February 13. Bogotá : República de Colombia, Imprenta Nacional.Google Scholar
García Villegas, Mauricio. 1996. Justicia constitucional y acción de tutela. Estudios Ocasionales CIJUS. Bogotá : Ediciones Uniandes, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de los Andes.Google Scholar
García Villegas, Mauricio. 2006. Reformismo introvertido: las transformaciones de la justicia en Colombia durante los últimos treinta años. In En la encrucijada: Colombia en el siglo XXI, ed. Leal Buitrago, Francisco. Bogotá : Norma.Google Scholar
García Villegas, Mauricio, and Uprimny, Rodrigo. 2006. La reforma a la tutela: ¿Ajuste o desmonte? In ¿Justicia para todos? Sistema judicial, derechos sociales, y democracia en Colombia, ed. Uprimny, César Rodríguez Garavito, and Villegas, García. Bogotá : Norma. 471–530.Google Scholar
Gargarella, Roberto. 2005. The Constitution of Inequality: Constitutionalism in the Americas, 1776–1860. International Journal of Constitutional Law 3, 1: 1–23.Google Scholar
Gargarella, Roberto, Domingo, Pilar, and Roux, Theunix, eds. 2006. Courts and Social Transformation in New Democracies: An Institutional Voice for the Poor? Burlington : Ashgate.Google Scholar
Gauri, Varun, and Brinks, Daniel M., eds. 2008. Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World. New York : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gaviria, César. 1991. Intervención del jefe de estado ante la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente el 17 de abril de 1991. Gaceta Constitucional (Bogotá) no. 56, April 22.Google Scholar
Gillman, Howard. 1999. The Court as an Idea, Not a Building (or a Game): Interpretive Institutionalism and the Analysis of Supreme Court Decision-Making. In Supreme Court Decision-Making: New Institutionalist Approaches, ed. Clayton, Cornell W. and Gillman, . Chicago : University of Chicago Press. 65–89.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom. 2003. Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Peter A. 2005. Preference Formation as a Political Process: The Case of Monetary Union in Europe. In Preferences and Situations: Points of Intersection Between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism, ed. Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, Barry. New York : Russell Sage Foundation. 129–60.Google Scholar
Hartzell, Caroline. 1993. Las reformas económicas en la Constitución de 1991. In La Constitución de 1991: ¿Un pacto político viable? ed. Dugas, John. Bogotá : Departamento de Ciéncias Políticas, Universidad de Los Andes. 77–96.Google Scholar
Hernández, José Gregorio. 2009. Former Constitutional Court Justice (1991–2001), Colombia. Author interview. Bogotá, March 13.Google Scholar
Herrán, Maria Teresa. 1998. Ciro Angarita, retador. Bogotá : UNICEF.Google Scholar
Hilbink, Lisa. 2007. Judges Beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile. New York : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hilbink, Lisa. 2009. The Constituted Nature of Constituents' Interests. Political Research Quarterly 62, 4: 781–97.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran. 2004. Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. Cambridge : Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jaramillo Pérez, Iván. 1999. El futuro de la salud en Colombia. 4th ed. Bogotá : FESCOL, FES, Fundación Corona, and FRB.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, Diana, and Taylor, Matthew M.. 2008. Doing Courts Justice? Studying Judicial Politics in Latin America. Perspectives on Politics 6, 4: 741–67.Google Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. 2007. Party, Policy, or Duty: Why Does the Supreme Court Invalidate Federal Statutes American Political Science Review 101, 2: 321–38.Google Scholar
Landau, David. 2005. The Two Discourses in Colombian Constitutional Jurisprudence: a New Approach to Modeling Judicial Behavior in Latin America. George Washington International Law Review 37, 3: 687–744.Google Scholar
Lemaitre, Julieta. 2006. El coronel sí tiene quien le escriba: la protección judicial del derecho al mínimo vital en Colombia. In Derecho y pobreza, ed. Barbosa Pinto, Marcos and Bergallo, Paola. Buenos Aires : Editores del Puerto.Google Scholar
López Medina, Diego. 2004. Teoría impura del derecho: la transformación de la cultura jurídica latinoamericana. Bogotá : Legis.Google Scholar
Martínez, Alejandro. 2001. Speech given on the occasion of his retirement from the Constitutional Court (on file with the author).Google Scholar
Martínez, Alejandro. 2007. Former constitutional adviser to the M-19; former Contitutional Court Justice (1991–2001), Colombia. Author interview. Bogotá, April 18.Google Scholar
Murillo-Castaño, Gabriel, and Gómez-Segura, Victoria. 2005. Institutions and Citizens in Colombia: the Changing Nature of a Difficult Relationship. Social Forces 84, 1: 1–18.Google Scholar
Navarro, Antonio F., et al. 1991. Proyecto de acto reformatorio Constitución Política de Colombia no. 50. Gaceta Constitucional no. 22, March 18. Bogotá : República de Colombia, Imprenta Nacional.Google Scholar
Nielson, Daniel L., and Soberg Shugart, Matthew. 1999. Constitutional Change in Colombia: Policy Adjustment through Institutional Reform. Comparative Political Studies 32, 3: 313–41.Google Scholar
Perry, Guillermo. 2007. Liberal Party member of the 1991 Constitutional Assembly, Colombia. Author interview. Bogotá, March 30.Google Scholar
De La República, Presidencia. 1991. Transcripción de sesiones, Comisión Cuarta, 9 de abril de 1991. Bogotá : Centro de Información y Sistemas para la Preparación de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Studies in Rationality and Social Change. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Restrepo Saldarriaga, Esteban. 2003. Entrevista a Eduardo Cifuentes Muñoz. Cited November 30, 2009. http://www.uc3m.es/uc3m/inst/MGP/JCI/revista-01art-cbm1.htm.Google Scholar
Rios-Figueroa, Julio. 2007. Fragmentation of Power and the Emergence of an Effective Judiciary in Mexico, 1994–2002. Latin American Politics and Society 49, 1 (Spring): 31–57.Google Scholar
Rodríguez Garavito, César. 2009. La globalización del estado de derecho: el neo-constitucionalismo, el neoliberalismo y la transformación institucional en América Latina. Bogotá : Ediciones Uniandes, Facultad de Derecho.Google Scholar
Segura, Renata, and María Bejarano, Ana. 2004. !Ni una asamblea más sin nosotros! Exclusion, Inclusion, and the Politics of Constitution-Making in the Andes. Constellations 11, 2: 217–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shihata, Ibrahim F. I. 1995. Judicial Reform in Developing Countries and the Role of the World Bank. In Judicial Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean: Proceedings of a World Bank Conference (World Bank Technical Paper no. 280), ed. Rowat, Malcom, Malik, Waleed H., and Dakoliass, Maria. Washington , DC : World Bank. 219–33.Google Scholar
Smith, Gaddis. 2004. Politics and the Law School: The View from Woodbridge Hall. In History of the Yale Law School: The Tercentennial Lectures, ed. Kronman, A. T.. New Haven : Yale University Press. 138–53.Google Scholar
Stone-Sweet, Alec. 2000. Governing with Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe. Oxford : Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark. 2008. Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law. Princeton : Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Uprimny, Rodrigo. 2006a. Entre el protagonismo, la precariedad y las amenazas: las paradojas de la judicatura. In En la encrucijada: Colombia en el siglo XXI, ed. Leal Buitrago, Francisco. Bogotá : Editorial Norma.Google Scholar
Uprimny, Rodrigo. 2006b. The Judicial Protection of Social Rights by the Colombian Constitutional Court: Cases and Debates. In Gargarella et al. 2006.Google Scholar
Uribe, Juan Pablo. 2004. The Influence of Foreign Models on Health Reform in Colombia. In Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform, ed. Weyland, Kurt. Baltimore : John Hopkins University Press. 196–218.Google Scholar
Uribe Vargas, Diego. 1991. Carta de derechos, deberes, garantías y libertades. Gaceta Constitucional no. 82, May 25. Bogotá.Google Scholar
Urrutia, Miguel. 1994. Colombia. In The Political Economy of Policy Reform, ed. Williamson, John. Washington , DC : Peterson Institute for International Economics. 285–315.Google Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2001. Legislative-Judicial Relations: a Game-Theoric Approach to Constitutional Review. American Journal of Political Science 45, 2: 346–61.Google Scholar
De La República, Vicepresidencia. 1995. El libro blanco de la tutela. Bogotá: Consejeria Presidencial para el Desarrollo Institucional, Vicepresidencia de la República.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 2005. Persuasion, Preference Change, and Critical Junctures: The Microfoundations of a Macroscopic Concept. In Preferences and Situations: Points of Intersection Between Historical Institutionalism and Rational Choice Institutionalism, ed. Katznelson, Ira and Weingast, . New York : Russell Sage Foundation. 161–84.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith E. 2000. Once More unto the Breach: Postbehavioralist Approaches to Judicial Politics. Law and Social Inquiry 25, 2: 601–34.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith E. 2005. “Interpose Your Friendly Hand”: Political Supports for the Exercise of Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court. American Political Science Review 99, 4: 583–96.Google Scholar
Wilson, Bruce M., and Carlos Rodríguez Cordero, Juan. 2006. Legal Opportunity Structures and Social Movements: the Effects on Institutional Change on Costa Rican Politics. Comparative Political Studies 39, 3: 325–51.Google Scholar
Wilson, Bruce M., Carlos Rodríguez Cordero, Juan, and Handberg, Roger. 2004. The Best Laid Schemes … Gang Aft a-gley: Judicial Reform in Latin America: Evidence from Costa Rica. Journal of Latin American Studies 36, 3 (August): 507–31.Google Scholar
Woods, Patricia J., and Hilbink, Lisa. 2009. Comparative Sources of Judicial Empowerment: Ideas and Interests. Political Research Quarterly 62, 4: 745–52.Google Scholar
Yamin, Alicia Ely, and Parra-Vera, Oscar. 2009. How Do Courts Set Health Policy PLoS Medicine 6, 2: 147–50.Google Scholar