Chapter 8 Defending the Judiciary? Judicial Review of Constitutional Amendments on the Judiciary in Colombia
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Abstract
The judicial review of constitutional amendments in Colombia has evolved through the activism of constitutional judges rather than the texts of the Constitutions. In times of judicial crisis and reform to the judiciary it becomes more interesting because the constitutional judges have reviewed amendments regarding the judicial branch, as several of them have been declared unconstitutional during the last four decades. This chapter tells the trajectory of the review of constitutional amendments to the Judiciary, suggesting that one of the factors that could explain these rulings is the defence of the judicial branch by the constitutional judges. In this way, it tells the interdependency between politics and Law on the decisions that have limited the power of the Congress to reform the Judiciary, by the Supreme Court, between 1978 and 1991; as well as by the Constitutional Court as of the Constitution of 1991.