2024-07-05 09:19:45
“Wanting to change it just because is the worst message that can be given to a people,” said Judge José Fernando Reyes in his speech.
Today, July 4, marks thirty-three years since the approval of the text of the 1991 Constitution, an event that will be officially celebrated on July 7 when it was published in the Constitutional Gazette.
José Fernando Reyes, president of the Constitutional Court, reflected on the meaning and importance of this fundamental document.
The judge stressed that Colombia, throughout its history, has been plagued by violence, with few moments of peace. Although the signing of the peace agreement in 2016 was a sign of hope, violence persists. Reyes emphasized that the 1991 Constitution represented a new hopea pact for a different country where all citizens have rights and where peace and justice must prevail.
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Reyes argued that the 1991 Constitution is distinguished from the 1886 Constitution primarily by its focus on fundamental rights and their protection. While the previous constitution had programmatic rights, the new Charter guarantees enforceable rights. This has strengthened the idea that rights are not mere concessions but guarantees that must be fulfilled by the State.
“So How can we continue to talk about new constitutional projects if we have not been able to develop and enforce the pact we forged in 1991? The Constitution cannot be a deformed, gelatinous and banal mass, changeable at will, but rather the opposite, a rigid text with very relative flexibility, which requires very meticulous and demanding requirements for variation and change. The trivialization of the Constitution and what is even worse, wanting to change it just because, is the worst message that can be given to a people whose hands and spirits still demand the satisfaction of “the minimum,” said Reyes.
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