Created by the 1991 Constitution and among the most consequential constitutional courts anywhere. It decides citizen actions of unconstitutionality with erga omnes effect, selectively reviews tutela judgments from across the country, and developed the estado de cosas inconstitucional to order structural remedies for prison overcrowding and forced displacement.
How the court is constituted
- Tier
- constitutional
- Court type
- Constitutional court
- Jurisdiction
- National
- Seat
- Bogotá
- Established
- 1991
- Composition
- Nine magistrates serving single eight-year terms.
- Appointment
- Elected by the Senate from three-name lists submitted by the President, the Supreme Court and the Council of State.
- Caseload
- Selects a few hundred tutela cases a year from hundreds of thousands filed nationally.
- Languages
- Spanish
Where an appeal goes next
Final domestically; individual petitions may proceed to the Inter-American system.
Filing at this court
- Tutela decision deadline
- 10 days at first instance
- Who may file a tutela
- Any person, orally or in writing, without a lawyer
Decisions worth knowing
- T-025 de 20042004
Declared an unconstitutional state of affairs for forcibly displaced people and retained supervision for years.
- C-355 de 20062006
Decriminalised abortion in cases of risk to health, fatal foetal malformation and rape.
- T-622 de 20162016
Recognised the Atrato River as a subject of rights.
- C-055 de 20222022
Removed criminal liability for abortion up to 24 weeks.
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