Legal criteria to set sanctions against congressmen for legislative omissions in Colombia

Abstract

The Constitutional Court of Colombia through its manipulative and exhortative sentences has been filling the gaps inherent to legislative regulation, in order to effectively protect the rights and guarantees established in the Political Constitution. However, the real problem of legislative omissions must be solved from within the Congress of the Republic. In this way, it is possible to show that there isn’t an adequate legislation able to generate consequences for the members of the legislative body for breach of their duty when they are exhorted (to do it) by the Constitutional Court. In this sense, the intention is to establish legal criteria that establish sanctions to the Congressmen of the Republic to ensure their compliance with the legislative duty when constitutional petitions are submitted to fill voids specific to legislative omissions. From the distinction of jurisprudential treatment made by the Constitutional Court in cases of relative and absolute legislative omissions, ten landmark judgments were identified in light of the constitutional bills that the legislative branch failed to comply with. As a result, it was possible to determine the constant violation of fundamental rights and the heightened legal uncertainty that arose in society as a result of the lack of measures to combat this problem. Six legal criteria are determined: axiological, prioritization, legislative training, constitutional guarantees, strict positivism and citizen participation, which will allow to establish a legislative or constitutional provision that imposes any type of sanction to the members of the legislature for breach of duty, especially when it refers to exhortative sentences.