Sostenibilidad fiscal: el alto precio de aplicar la justicia

Abstract

Legislative Act No. 03 of 2011 amended the Political Constitution of Colombia by including the Principle of Fiscal Sustainability. This principle is a guiding criterion which must be complied by the authorities and bodies of Colombian state power and whose main objective is to guarantee the citizens' rights stipulated in the Constitution within the framework of financial and economic sustainability. In accordance with Colombian National Government, the Principle of Fiscal Sustainability is supported by the high increase in public spending, which is a situation that mist be controlled and regulated to meet the economic needs of the state; however, the adoption of the Principle of Fiscal Sustainability, have generated the opinions of some critics who claim that this principal´s implementation leads to the substitution of the principles of the Social State based on the rule of law. For this reason, the present article will emphasize in answering the following question. Has really the principle of fiscal sustainability fragmented the essential postulates of the Social State based on the rule of law, when it has been applied as a guiding criterion of judicial decisions in Colombia? To conclude finally and effectively that the principle of fiscal sustainability has fragmented the essential postulates of the Social State based on the rule of law, when it has used as a guiding criterion of judicial decisions in Colombia because of one of its purposes is to modify or defer judicial rulings made by some of the Colombians high courts that run in the country, in view of the fact that at the initiative of an administrative authority which is foreign to the structure of the judiciary, it is considered that realize or materialize those judicial orders may harm or undermine public spending, what implies the limitation of judicial decisions in terms of reparation or effective protection of the rights of individuals.