Keywords
Constitutional supremacy
Substitution of the Constitution
Constituent power
Limits on constitutional reform
How to Cite
Abstract
This article describes one of the main problems of constitutionalism
in Colombia: the persistence of constitutional instability, and the
way in which this instability, representing a very common tradition
in Latin American legal systems, is far from harmonizing with the
basic tenets of constitutionalism, as with the institutional
developments of societies showing better indicators of economic
and democratic performance. This paper underscores the intimate
connection existing between this fact and the technical
inconsistencies of the 1991 Colombian Constitution, which did
not create the adequate mechanisms needed to protect the countrys
constitutional pact. In this way, an opportunity was created for
those judges deciding constitutional issues to establish limits on
the power of constitutional reform, through the theory of the
substitution of the Constitution.
This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights.
Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.