Constitution and Jail: Judicialization of the prison world in Colombia

Abstract

Since the 1991 Constitution, there has been an intense process of judicial intervention in the Colombian penitentiary system. This process has been driven by a novel form of resistance to subhuman conditions of imprisonment through the use of the courts by persons deprived of liberty, non-governmental organizations and legal clinics. This article focuses on the description of the processes that gave rise to the three most important structural decisions of the Constitutional Court of Colombia (Judgment T-153/1998; Judgment T-388/2013 and Judgment T-762/2017), and Its objective is to explain the challenges posed by the growing juridification of life in prison, as well as its impact on the protection of the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty.

Keywords:
Judges; Prisons; Judicialization; Constitution; Strategic litigation; Colombia; Constitutional court