Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 Bogotá D.C., September 2, 2015 The transplant of John Rawls’ Principles of Justice into the Colombian Constitution of 1991 and their influence to overcome the traditional legal formalism in Colombia El trasplante de los principios de justicia de John Rawls en la Constitución colombiana de 1991 y su influencia en la superación del tradicional formalismo jurídico en Colombia Carlos Andrés Pérez Garzón 8

Abstract

Resumen

This essay wants to show that the main elements of the John Rawls’ principles of justice were transplanted into the Colombian Constitution of 1991, and that they have been used by the Constitutional Court, especially the second principle, as an instrument to overcome the legal formalism traditionally practiced by the Colombian Judiciary, and to protect more effectively both fundamental and social rights.

Este ensayo quiere mostrar que los principales elementos de los principios de justicia de John Rawls fueron trasplantados a la Constitución colombiana de 1991, y que han sido usados por la Corte Constitucional, especialmente el segundo principio, como un instrumento para superar el formalismo jurídico tradicionalmente practicado por la judicatura en Colombia, y para proteger más efectivamente tanto los derechos fundamentales como los derechos sociales.

Key words: John Rawls, principles of justice, legal formalism, legal transplant, Colombian Constitution of 1991, fundamental rights, social rights, Constitutional Court

Palabras clave: John Rawls, principios de justicia, formalismo jurídico, trasplante jurídico, Constitución colombiana de 1991, derechos fundamentales, derechos sociales, Corte Constitucional

8 Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) Student at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. E-mail: [email protected]. 20

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 I.

Introduction

Legal transplants are a common practice in Latin America, since the transplanting of the Code Napoleon through the Andrés Bello’s Civil Code, to the transplanting of legal theories like the Kelsenian positivism in modern times. In Colombia, the new Constitution of 1991 is a reflection of this phenomenon; the Social State of Law was a figure “invented” in Europe after the World War II with the aim of protecting fundamental rights to life, real equality, equal opportunities, etc., to achieve peace and development. The right to real equality had been formulated as a remedy to the formal equality before the Law guaranteed by the State of Law that didn’t resolve the differences in incomes, opportunities, etc. necessary to the appropriate exercise of rights. The most important is that it meant a change in the way of interpreting the law because now, as the legislator couldn’t regulate all the situations in which the rule should be imposed, the judge had to impose the rule by way of interpreting it in the light of the facts, not only of the law itself. This is what I will call in this text the change from legal formalism9 or traditional legal interpretation to the new legal interpretation. The thesis of this essay is that in the article 13 of the Constitution, the article that establishes the fundamental right to equality, the main elements of the John Rawls’ principles of justice have been transplanted, and they have been used by the Constitutional Court, especially the second principle, as an instrument to overcome the legal formalism traditionally practiced by the Colombian Judiciary, and to protect more effectively both fundamental and social rights.10 I am going to develop my argument in this way: first I will discuss briefly the theory about legal transplants, then I will prove the presence of Rawls’ principles of justice in the article 13 of the Constitution to show that there has been a legal transplant, and then I will analyze the judgment T-406 of 1992 where the Constitutional Court began a precedent based in an argument founded on Rawls’s philosophy with which breaks up the ruling legal formalism to protect fundamental and some social rights too, and finally I will give my conclusion. II.

On legal transplants

According to Professor Daniel Bonilla, “the legal transplants have been fundamental to the law construction and transformation in the world”11.

9 For the sake of the argument, in this text “legal formalism” means a method of legal interpretation based only in the rigorous analysis of the legal text itself. 10 By social rights I mean the social, economic, cultural and collective rights in the Constitution, articles 11- 82, 88. 11 Daniel Bonilla Maldonado. Teoría del derecho y trasplantes jurídicos. Ed., Universidad de los Andes. (2009). p.11. 21

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 Today there are two models that try to explain this phenomenon 12. I will explain only their pertinent features for this text. The first is the simple model which says that the legal transplanter is the governments of the State, and that the transplanted object is only rules. The second is the complex model which says that the legal transplanter can be other agents, not only the government, and that the transplanted object can be also legal theories, ideas, institutions, etc. Those are the general models for the study of legal transplants, but there are three specific models that are worthy of mention13, the first is the pragmatic model according to which legal transplants are interpreted as means to reach an end, for example to make a more efficient judiciary. The second is the valorativo model (“the model that values, that takes into account the values” in Spanish) which says that to understand the legal transplants “we must focus on the values, principles and political interests that found them”14. And the third is the contextual model which critiques legal transplants saying that they “generally have serious problems to consolidate themselves in the contexts of reception”15. Now, according to these models and for the purpose of this work I will define a legal transplant as one or a group of legal theories, institutions or rules, that are exported to other countries or backgrounds by any transplanter capable to do it: a government, scholars in universities, constituents in Constituent National Assemblies, etc., and that can be interpret it as the means to reach an end in the transplanted context, like the effectiveness of fundamental rights. III.

Rawls’ principles of justice in the Constitution

It doesn’t matter too much if there is no record of some constituent talking about Rawls’ theories in the National Constituent Assembly, because it is evident that the Colombian Constituent of 1991 didn’t invent by itself a complex theory about equal liberties and opportunities for all, and differentiated treatment for the disadvantaged, especially when Rawls had formulated twenty years before that theory, so widely known in the world in the 90’s. Moreover, the best prove of this assertion is the text itself where the two principles of justice are clearly written, but first let’s contextualize Rawls’ philosophy. In his main book A theory of justice, Rawls revives the theory of social contract as the philosophical explanation for the existence of the State and rights. According to him, to find out what rights should we have, we need to imagine us in a position (the original position) in which 12 Ibidem, p. 14-20. 13 Ibidem, p. 20-22. 14 Ibidem, p. 20. 15 Ibidem, p. 22. 22

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 we don’t know who we are, which are our interests, our social and economic position, etc., there we’re behind the veil of ignorance; in this place we can decide impartially which are the rights that should govern us, rights that are comprehended in two principles of justice, as he calls them, the first is the principle of the same extensive equal liberties for all, and the second prescribes that the“(s)ocial and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, (…), and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.” 16 I will argue that these principles are in the heart of the bill of fundamental rights in our Constitution; if we analyze the most important article referring fundamental rights, the 13 th, we can identify them: 17 “Artículo 13. Todas las personas nacen libres e iguales ante la ley, recibirán la misma protección y trato de las autoridades y gozarán de los mismos derechos, libertades y oportunidades sin ninguna discriminación por razones de sexo, raza, origen nacional o familiar, lengua, religión, opinión política o filosófica. El Estado promoverá las condiciones para que la igualdad sea real y efectiva y adoptará medidas en favor de grupos discriminados o marginados. El Estado protegerá especialmente a aquellas personas que por su condición económica, física o mental, se encuentren en circunstancia de debilidad manifiesta y sancionará los abusos o maltratos que contra ellas se cometan.”18 (Original text is not underlined). In the first paragraph we can see the first principle, equal liberties for all, and the second part of the second principle, equal opportunities for all; in the others two paragraphs we can see the first part of the second principle, the principle of permitting inequalities only if it benefits the least advantaged. This analysis shows that the Rawls’s principles of justice, as a legal theory, have been transplanted by the Constituent in the Constitution of 1991. The presence of Rawls’ theory in this article is important because it can be used, as in fact was used by the Constitutional Court as I will argue, as an instrument to guarantee liberties and a real equality for all, especially for the disadvantaged, and to protect them.

16 John B. Rawls. A Theory of Justice, a revised edition. Ed., Harvard University Press. (1999). p.266. 17 For the sake of the argument I say this is the most important article concerning fundamental rights because it is the base of the civil rights and it prescribes the way they must be exercised and guaranteed by the State. 18 Constitución Politica de 1991, article 13. 23

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 IV.

The judgment T-406 of 199219

Now the analysis of this judgment is aimed to prove that the transplantation of Rawls’s principles of justice, mainly the second one, has been an effective instrument to fight against the legal formalism culture in Colombia. In this case the petitioner, inhabitant in a poor neighborhood in Cartagena, filed an acción de tutela, an action to protect only fundamental rights according to the Constitution 20, asking the municipal government to finish building a sewage system because there had been an overflowing of raw sewage which had affected his social rights to health, sanitation and a sewage system. 21 Essentially, the judge denied the action saying that the Constitution establishes expressly that the acción de tutela proceeds only for the fundamental rights strictly described by the Constitution. In this case the Constitutional Court said that, contrary to the textual interpretation of the Constitution, the acción de tutela proceeds to protect social, economic, cultural and collective rights when their violation evidently affects fundamental rights, in this case his fundamental rights to human dignity, life and the derechos de los disminuídos (rights of the disadvantages).22 The Court’s reasoning in this case was: 1. The fundamental rights aren’t only the prescribed in the constitutional text. 2. If there is a situation where the violation of social rights affects evidently fundamental rights, the acción de tutela proceeds exceptionally to protect them too, even though the original text clearly prescribes that it is an instrument created to protect fundamental rights. 23 3. A situation in which both fundamental and social rights can be protected through an acción de tutela is when the petitioner is socially, physically or economically disadvantaged and has no other appeal to protect his rights both fundamental and social (these ones exceptionally as noted). As we can see, in this judgment the Constitutional Court abandoned the traditional legal interpretation in Colombia that I have called in this text “legal formalism” and set up as precedent a new legal interpretation that disregards the mere analysis of the text and instead takes into account the facts and the situation of the petitioner. In words of the Court, the new legal 19 Corte Constitucional de Colombia. Sentencia T-406 de 1992, Decision drafted by Justice Ciro Angarita Barón. 20 See: article 86 of the Constitution. 21 According to the Constitution the right to health is a social right (article 49), and the rights to sanitation and a sewage system are collective rights (article 85). 22 See: Corte Constitucional, Op. Cit., point IV.27. 23 The Court complements this analysis saying: “De acuerdo con esto, la enumeración del artículo 85 no debe ser entendida como un criterio taxativo y excluyente. En este sentido es acertado el enfoque del artículo segundo del decreto 2591 de 1991 cuando une el carácter de tutelable de un derecho a su naturaleza de derecho fundamental y no a su ubicación.” Corte Constitucional, Op. Cit., point 15.2. 24

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 interpretation consists in: “la pérdida de la importancia sacramental del texto legal entendido como emanación de la voluntad popular y mayor preocupación por la justicia material y por el logro de soluciones que consulten la especificidad de los hechos.”24 That rule of interpretation creates an inequality because the social, economic or physical disadvantaged will receive a special protection of their social rights through an acción de tutela, a protection not given to someone without those limitations. Then, extending the protection of the acción de tutela to social rights when the petitioner is someone disadvantaged, the Constitutional Court set up a rule of interpretation that can be enunciated as “interpreting the Constitutional rules, like the rights, in a favorable way to the disadvantaged”. That is, the Court adopted the Rawls’s first part of the second principle of justice, the principle of permitting the inequalities that benefit the disadvantaged, because now it interprets the Constitution in a way that best benefit them, even though this interpretation creates an inequality not previewed in the Constitution. V.

Conclusion

The Court has used this rule of interpretation since then to protect through the acción de tutela some of the most important social rights like health, and social security. In fact, most of the acciones de tutela today in Colombia seek the protection of these rights. 25 The protection of those rights through the acción de tutela, wouldn’t have been possible without a legal interpretation that disregarded the mere analysis of the constitutional text in favor of a “factual interpretation” that included the social, economic and environmental conditions of the petitioners. Adopting the criterion of interpreting laws in the most favorable way to the disadvantaged, even against the literal sense of the constitutional text and in spite of the inequality originated for the people not disadvantaged, the Constitutional Court took into account the Rawls’ second principle of justice, the principle of permitting inequalities if it benefits the disadvantaged, to establish a new method to interpret the law that has helped to overcome the traditional legal formalism in the Colombian Judiciary and that is devoted to protect both fundamental and social rights and to promote the effectiveness of the Social State of Law established in the Constitution.

24 Corte Constitucional, Op. Cit., point I.3. 25 See: Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman's Office of Colombia). La tutela y el derecho a la salud 2012. (2012). p. 238. 25

Justicia y Derecho | ISSN 2323-0533 | Volumen 1 | Número 2 | Julio – Diciembre de 2013 Referencies Constitución Política de 1991 [Const]. Art. 13. June 7, 1991 (Colombia). Corte Constitucional de Colombia. Sentencia T-406 de 1992 (Drafted by Justice Ciro Angarita Barón: June 5, 1992). Daniel Bonilla Maldonado. Teoría del derecho y trasplantes jurídicos. Ed., Universidad de los Andes. (2009). Defensoría del Pueblo. La tutela y el derecho a la salud 2012. (2012). John B. Rawls. A Theory of Justice, a revised edition. Ed., Harvard University Press. (1999).

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