Las modificaciones legislativas a las acciones populares en Colombia: ¿avance o retroceso?

Abstract

Some years ago, several legislative and jurisprudential changes have taken place that affect the protection of collective rights created in the Constitution and in the Law 472 of 1998. This article aims to analyze how these changes, specifically related with the precautionary measures and the prerequisite to demand in popular action, imply a problem in the protection of the citizen’s human rights as a constitutional guarantee. For this, the methodology was based on the revision of the historical antecedents of the popular actions, followed by a study of the norms and jurisprudence that refer to the mentioned modifications and later, was made a dogmatic analysis of the social and political effects that generate such changes. In accordance with the proposed objectives, it is concluded that there is a lack of awareness of the importance that the Constituent gave to the protection of collective rights and popular actions, as a mechanism for citizen participation. Also is evident that there is a tension between two rules in the legal system, which places the citizen in the middle of a procedural discussion taking him away from the real nature of such actions and implies a specialized knowledge for the exercise of them.