Administrative Law as a Mockery of the Constitutional Controls of State of Exception: Colombia, Covid-19 and Obligatory Preventive Lockdown
Journal Article: Administrative Law as a Mockery of the Constitutional Controls of State of Exception: Colombia, Covid-19 and Obligatory Preventive Lockdown
Journal: Prolegómenos (online)
Date of Publication: 02 April 2025
Author: David Anzola Galindo, Lawyer and Political Scientist, Universidad del Rosario, Bogota, Colombia. Abogado y Politólogo de la Universidad del Rosario., Bogotá D.C., Colombia
How to Cite: Anzola Galindo, David. Administrative Law as a Mockery of the Constitutional Controls of State of Exception: Colombia, Covid-19 and Obligatory Preventive Lockdown. Prolegómenos [online]. 2025, vol.28, n.55, pp.99-114. Epub Apr 02, 2025. ISSN 0121-182X. https://doi.org/10.18359/prole.6781.
The objective of this article is to demonstrate how Colombia's mandatory preventive lock-down decrees during Covid-19 bypassed the constitutional controls designed to regulate states of exception. This situation resulted in a violation of the fundamental right to free movement. The methodology used in this study begins with an examination of the mandatory preventive lockdown decrees. It then continues with an analysis of the legal foundations on which these decrees were based to justify exceptional orders. Finally, the article reviews the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Colombia and the Consejo de Estado, focusing on the reasons both courts were unable to exercise control over these decrees. The conclusion is that these decrees circumvented automatic constitutional controls, and any legal challenge against them proved ineffective due to procedural delays.
The full text of the article is available in Spanish on the website, here.
