| COLOMBIA Republic of Colombia Republica de Colombia Joined United Nations: 5 November 1945 Human Rights as assured by their constitution Updated 24 October 2012 |
POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF COLOMBIA
TITLE I
CONCERNING FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
Article 1. Colombia is a legal social state organized in the form of a unitary republic, decentralized, withe the autonomy of its territorial
units, democratic, participatory and pluralistic, based on respect of human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the individuals who
belong to it, and the predominance of the general interest.
Article 2. The essential goals of the state are to serve the community, promote general prosperity, and guarantee the effectiveness of the
principles, rights, and duties stipulated by the Constitution; to facilitate the participation of all in the decisions that affect them and in the
economic, political, administrative, mid cultural life of the nation; to defend national independence, maintain territorial integrity, and ensure
peaceful coexistence and the enforcement of a just order.
The authorities of the Republic are established in order to protect all persons residing in Colombia, their life, dignity, property, beliefs, and
other rights and freedoms, and in order to ensure the fulfillment of the social duties of the state and individuals.
Article 3. Sovereignty resides exclusively in the people from whom public power emanates. The people exercise it in direct form or
through their representatives within the limits established by the Constitution.
Article 4. The Constitution is the supreme law. In all cases of incompatibility between the Constitution and the law or any other legislation
or regulation, the constitutional provisions will apply.
It is the duty of citizens and of aliens in Colombia to abide by the Constitution and the laws, and to respect and obey the authorities.
Article 5. The state recognizes, without any discrimination whatsoever, the primacy of the inalienable rights of the individual and protects
the family as the basic institution of society.
Article 6. Each person is individually responsible before the authorities for violations of the Constitution and the laws. Civil servants are
responsible for the same reason, and likewise for omission or acting "ultra vires" in the exercise of their functions.
Article 7. The state recognizes and protects the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian nation.
Article 8.It is the obligation of the state and of individuals to protect the cultural and natural assets of the nation.
Article 9. The external relations of the state are based on national sovereignty, on respect for the self-determination of peoples, and on the
recognition of the principles of international law approved by Colombia.
In the same manner, the foreign policy of Colombia will be oriented toward the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Article 10. Spanish is the official language of Colombia. The languages and dialects of ethnic groups are also official in their territories.
The education provided in communities with their own linguistic traditions will be bilingual.
TITLE II
CONCERNING RIGHTS, GUARANTEES, AND DUTIES
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Article 11. The right to life is inviolable. There will be no death penalty.
Article 12. No one will be subjected to forced imprisonment, nor submitted to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or
punishment.
Article 13. All individuals are born free and equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection and treatment by the authorities, and
to enjoy the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, national or family origin,
language, religion, political opinion, or philosophy.
The state will promote the conditions necessary in order that equality may be real and effective will adopt measures in favor of groups
which are discriminated against or marginalized.
The state will especially protect those individuals who on account of their economic, physical, or mental condition are in obviously
vulnerable circumstances and will sanction any abuse or ill-treatment perpetrated against them.
Article 14. Every individual has the right to he legally recognized as a person.
Article 15. All the people have right to their personal and familiar privacy and its good reputation, and the State must respect them and
make respect them. Equally, they must right to know, to update and to rectify the information that have taken shelter on them in the data
banks and archives of public and deprived organizations.
In the harvesting, treatment and circulation of data will be respected the freedom and other guarantees consecrated in the Constitution.
The correspondence and other forms of private communication are inviolable. They only can be intercepted or be registered by means of
judicial order, in the cases and with the formalities that the law establishes.
With the purpose of preventing the commission with terrorist acts, a statutory law will regulate the form and conditions in which the
authorities that it indicates, with foundation in serious reasons, can intercept or register the correspondence and other forms of deprived
communication, without previous judicial order, with warning immediate to the General Office of the judge advocate general of the Nation
and later judicial control within the thirty and six (36) hours following. When initiating every period of sessions the Gobierno will render
report to the Congress on the use that has become of this faculty. The civil employees who abuse the measures to that east article talks
about will incur very serious lack, without damage of the other responsibilities to that there will be place.
For judicial tributary effects and the cases of inspection, monitoring and intervention of the State, he will be able to demand accounting
the deprived book presentation and other documents, in the terms that the law indicates.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 16. All persons are entitled to their free personal development without limitations other than those imposed by the rights of others
and those which are prescribed by the legal system.
Article 17. Slavery, servitude, and the slave trade in all forms are prohibited.
Article 18. Freedom of conscience is guaranteed. No one will be importuned on account of his/her convictions or beliefs or compelled to
reveal them or obliged to act against his/her conscience.
Article 19. Freedom of religion is guaranteed. Every individual has the right to freely profess his/her religion and to disseminate it
individually or collectively. All religious faiths and churches are equally free before the law.
Article 20. Every individual is guaranteed the freedom to express and diffuse his/her thoughts and opinions, to transmit and receive
information that is true and impartial, and to establish mass communications media.
The mass media are free and have a social responsibility. The right of rectification under equitable conditions is guaranteed. There will be
no censorship.
Article 21. The right to dignity is guaranteed. The law will provide the manner in which it will be upheld.
Article 22. Peace is a right and a duty whose compliance is mandatory.
Article 23. Every person has the right to present petitions to the authorities for the general or private interest and to secure their prompt
resolution. The legislative body may regulate the presentation of petitions to private organizations in order to guarantee fundamental rights.
Article 24. All Colombian, with the limitations that the law establishes, must right to circulate freely around the national territory, to enter
and to leave him, and to remain and to call to account themselves in Colombia.
The National Government will be able to establish the obligation to take a report of residence of the inhabitants of the national territory, in
accordance with the statutory law that is sent for the effect.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 25. Work is a right and a social obligation and in all its forms enjoys the special protection of the state. Every person is entitled to a
job under dignified and equitable conditions.
Article 26. Every person is free to choose a profession or occupation. The law may require certificates of competence. The competent
authorities will inspect and supervise the exercise of the professions. Occupations, the arts, and work that do not require academic
training are to be freely exercised, except for those which involve a risk to society.
Legally recognized professions may be organized into professional associations. The internal structure and operation of the latter must be
democratic. The law may assign public functions to them and establish the appropriate controls.
Article 27. The state guarantees freedom of teaching at the primary and secondary level, training, research, and professorship.
Article 28. Every person is free. Nobody can be bothered in its person or family, neither reduced to prison or arrest, nor prisoner, nor his
registered address, but by virtue of written order of competent judicial authority, with the legal formalities and by reason previously
defined in the law.
The lengthy person preventively will be made available of the competent judge within the thirty and six (36) hours following, so that this
she makes the corresponding decision in the term that establishes the law.
In no case she will be able to have halting, prison neither arrest by debts, nor pains and imprescriptible safety measures.
A statutory law will regulate the form in which, without previous judicial order, the authorities that it indicates can make haltings,
levellings and house searches, with warning immediate to the General Office of the judge advocate general of the Nation and later judicial
control within the thirty and six (36) hours following, whenever serious reasons exist to prevent the commission with terrorist acts. When
initiating every period of sessions the Government will render report to the Congress on the use that has become of this faculty. The civil
employees who abuse the measures to that east article talks about will incur very serious lack, without damage of the other responsibilities
to that there will be place.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 29. Due process will apply to all legal and administrative measures.
No one may be judged except in accordance with the relevant previously written laws before a competent judge or tribunal following all
appropriate formalities in each trial.
In penal cases, a permissive or favorable law, even when ex post facto, will be applied in preference to restrictive or unfavorable
alternatives.
Every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to the law. Everyone criminally charged is entitled to a defense and the
assistance of counsel chosen by the accused or assigned during the investigation and trial; to a fair and public hearing without
undue delay; to present evidence and to examine witnesses for the prosecution; to challenge the conviction; and not to be subject to
double jeopardy for the same act.
Evidence obtained in violation of due process is null and void as of right.
Article 30. Whoever is deprived of his/her freedom and believes it to be unlawful is entitled to invoke habeas corpus before any judicial
authority, at any time, on his/her own or through a third party, and that judicial authority must decide within 36 hours the
lawfulness of the detention.
Article 31. Any lawful conviction may be appealed or reviewed, but for exceptions provided by law.
When the accused is the sole appellant, the higher court may not impose a heavier penalty.
Article 32. The criminal who is caught in flagrante delicto may be apprehended and taken before a judge by any individual. Should he/she
be pursued by the agents of law and order and take refuge in his/her own home, the law enforcement agents may enter the domicile to
apprehend the criminal. Should he/she be caught in somebody else's home, a request to the resident will have to be made before entering.
Article 33. No one may be forced to testify against himself/herself or his/her spouse, permanent companion, or kin to the fourth level of
consanguinity, affinity two ranks removed, or one rank removed in civil law.
Article 34. Deportation, life imprisonment, or confiscation of property are prohibited.
However, a judicial sentence may nullify ownership of property acquired by unjust enrichment, when it is injurious to the public treasury
or seriously harmful to social morality.
Article 35. Extradition mat be requested to be granted or to be offered in agreement with treaties public and, in its defect, with the law.
In addition, the extradition of the Colombians by birth will be granted by crimes committed in the outside, considered like such in the
Colombian penal legislation. The Law will regulate the matter.
The extradition will not come by political crimes.
The extradition will not come when it is facts committed prior to the promulgation of the present norm.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 1997)
Article 36. The right of asylum is recognized within the limits provided by law.
Article 37. Any group of individuals may gather and demonstrate publicly and peacefully. The law alone may establish in specific manner
those cases in which the exercise of this right may be limited.
Article 38. The right of free association for the promotion of various activities that individuals pursue in society is guaranteed.
Article 39. Workers and employers have the right to form trade unions or associations without interference by the state. Their legal status
will be recognized by the simple registration of their constituent act.
The internal structure and functioning of the trade unions and social or labor organizations will be subject to the legal order and to
democratic principles.
The cancellation or suspension of legal status may only occur through legal means.
Jurisdiction and other guarantees necessary for the performance of their functions is recognized to trade union representatives.
Members of the public force (national police and armed forces) do not have the right to form associations.
Article 40. Any citizen has the right to participate in the establishment, exercise, and control of political power. To make this decree
effective the citizen may:
1. Vote and be elected.
2. Participate in elections, plebiscites, referendums, popular consultations, and other forms of democratic participation.
3.Constitute parties, political movements, or groups without any limit whatsoever; freely participate in them and diffuse their ideas and
programs.
4. Revoke the mandate of those elected in cases where it applies and in the form provided by the Constitution and the law.
5. Act in public bodies.
6. File public actions in defense of the Constitution and the law.
7. Hold public office, except for those Colombian citizens, native-born or naturalized, who hold dual citizenship. The law will regulate this
exception and will determine the cases where it applies.
The authorities will guarantee the adequate and effective participation of women in the decision making ranks of the public administration.
Article 41. In all educational institutions, public or private, the study of the Constitution and civics will be mandatory. In this way,
democratic practices will be promoted through the teaching of principles and the value of the citizens' participation will be promoted.
The state will publicize the Constitution.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
Article 42. The family is the basic nucleus of society. It is formed on the basis of natural or legal ties, by the free decision of a man and
woman to contract matrimony or by their responsible resolve to comply with it.
The state and society guarantee the integral protection of the family. The law may determine the inalienable and unseizable family
patrimony. The family's honor, dignity, and intimacy are inviolable.
Family relations are based on the equality of rights and duties of the couple and on the mutual respect of all its members. Any form of
violence in the family is considered destructive of its harmony and unity, and will be sanctioned according to law.
The children born of a matrimony or outside it, adopted or conceived naturally or with scientific assistance, have equal rights and duties.
The law will regulate responsibility to the offspring.
The couple has the right to decide freely and responsibly the number of their children and will have to support them and educate them
while they are minors or non-self-supporting.
The forms of marriage, the age and qualifications to contract it, the duties and rights of the spouses, their separation and the dissolution of
the marriage ties are determined by civil law.
Religious marriages will have civil effects within the limits established by law
The civil effects of all marriages may be determined by divorce in accordance with civil law.
Also, decrees of annulment of religious marriages issued by the authorities of the respective faiths shall have civil effects within the limits
established by law.
The law will determine matters relating to the civil status of individuals and the consequent rights and duties.
Article 43. Women and men have equal rights and opportunities. Women cannot be subjected to any type of discrimination. During their
periods of pregnancy and following delivery, women will benefit from the special assistance and protection of the state and will receive
from the latter food subsidies if they should thereafter find themselves unemployed or abandoned.
The state will support the female head of household in a special way.
Article 44. The following are basic rights of children: life, physical integrity, health and social security, a balanced diet, their name and
citizenship, to have a family and not be separated from it, care and love, instruction and culture, recreation, and the free expression of
their opinions. They will be protected against all forms of abandonment, physical or moral violence, imprisonment, sale, sexual abuse,
work or economic exploitation, and dangerous work. They will also enjoy other rights upheld in the Constitution, the laws, and
international treaties ratified by Colombia.
The family, society, and the state have the obligation to assist and protect children in order to guarantee their harmonious and complete
development and the full exercise of their rights. Any person may request the Competent authority to enforce these rights and to sanction
those who violate them.
The rights of children have priority over the rights of others.
Article 45. The adolescent is entitled to protection and integral development. The state and society guarantee the active participation of
adolescents in public and private organizations that are responsible for the protection, education, and progress of youth.
Article 46. The state, the society, and the family will all participate in protecting and assisting senior citizens and will promote their
integration into active and community life.
The state will guarantee them services of social security and food subsidies in cases of indigence.
Article 47. The state will promote a policy of planning, rehabilitation, and social integration for those who are physically, emotionally, or
psychologically handicapped and will provide the specialized attention that they need.
I ARTICULATE 48. The Social Security is a public service of obligatory character that it will be lent under the direction, coordination and
control of the State, in subjection to the principles of efficiency, universality and solidarity, in the terms that the Law establishes.
The cannot be waived right to the Social Security is guaranteed to all the inhabitants.
The State, with the participation of the individuals, will progressively extend the cover of the Social Security that will include/understand
the benefit of the services in the form that determines the Law.
The Social Security could be lent by public or deprived organizations, in accordance with the law.
The resources of the institutions of the Social Security will not be able to be destined nor to be used for aims different from her.
The law will define means so that the resources destined to pensions maintain their spending power constant.
The State will guarantee the rights, the financial sustainability of the Pension System, will respect the rights acquired in accordance with
the law and will assume the payment of the pensionary debt that in agreement with the law is to its position. The laws in pensionary
matter that are sent after the entrance in use of this legislative act, will have to assure the financial sustainability the established thing in
them.
Without damage of the discounts or deductions and embargoes to pensions ordered in agreement with the law, by no reason it will be able
to be let pay, be congealed or be reduced the value of the pulled one of the pensions recognized according to right.
In order to acquire the right to the pension it will be necessary to fulfill the age, the time on watch, the weeks of quotation or the
necessary capital, as well as the other conditions that the law indicates, without damage of arranged to the disability pensions and the
sobreexperience. The requirements and benefits to acquire the right to an sobreexperience or disability pension will be the established ones
by the laws of the General System of Pensions.
In pensionary matter all the acquired rights will be respected.
The pensionary requirements and benefits for all the people, including those of pension of oldness by activities of high risk, will be the
established ones in the laws of the General System of Pensions. Agreement will not be able to be dictated disposition or to be invoked
some to separate from established there.
For the liquidation of the pensions the factors will only consider on which each person will have carried out the quotations. No pension
could be inferior to the effective monthly legal wage minimum. Nevertheless, the law will be able to determine the cases in that inferior
periodic economic benefits can be granted to the minimum wage, to people of limited resources that do not fulfill the required conditions
to have right to a pension.
From the use of the present Legislative Act, there will be special nor no excepted regimes, without damage of the applicable one to the
public force, the President of the Republic and the established thing in the paragraphs of the present article.
The people whose right to the pension she is caused from the use of the present Legislative Act will not be able to receive more than
thirteen (13) pulled pension ones to the year. She is understood that the pension cause when all the requirements are fulfilled to accede to
her, had even though not taken place the recognition.
The law will establish a brief procedure for the revision of the pensions recognized with abuse of the right or without the fulfillment of the
requirements established in the law or the conventions and by arbitration ruling validly celebrated.
Paragraph 1o. From the 31 of 2010 July, pensions superior to twenty-five (25) effective monthly legal wages will not be able to be caused
minimum, with position to resources of public nature.
Paragraph 2o. From the use of the present Legislative Act they will not be able to settle down in pacts, collective conventions of work,
ruling or legal transaction some, pension conditions different from the established ones in the laws of the General System of Pensions.
Transitory paragraph 1o. The pensionary regime of the educational nationals, nationalized and territorial, tie to the public service educative
official is the established one for the Teaching in the effective legal dispositions prior to the entrance in evidence to of Law 812 of 2003,
and the presumption of article 81 of this. The educational ones which they are had tie or they tie from the use of the mentioned law, will
have the established right of prime average in the laws of the General System of Pensions, in the terms of article 81 of Law 812 of 2003.
Transitory paragraph 2o. Without damage of the acquired rights, the regime applicable to the members of the Public Force and to the
President of the Republic, and the established thing in the paragraphs of the present article, the use of special the pension regimes, the
excepted ones, as well as any other different one from the established one of permanent way in the laws of the General System of
Pensions will expire the 31 of July of year 2010.
Transitory paragraph 3o. The rules of pensionary character that prevail to the date of use of this Legislative Act contained in pacts,
collective conventions of work, ruling or agreements validly celebrated, will stay by the term initially stipulated. In the pacts, conventions
or ruling that subscribe between the use of this Legislative Act and the 31 of 2010 July, pension conditions more favorable will not be
able stipulate than those than they are effective at the moment. In any case the 31 of 2010 July will lose use.
Transitory paragraph 4o. The regime of transition established in Law 100 of 1993 and other norms that develop this regime, will not be
able to extend beyond the 31 of 2010 July; except for the workers whom being in this regime, in addition, they have quoted at least to 750
weeks or their equivalent one in uptime to the entrance in use of the present Legislative Act, to which this regime will stay to them until
year 2014.
The pension requirements and benefits for the people sheltered by this regime will be the demanded ones by article 36 of Law 100 of
1993 and other norms that develop this regime.
Transitory paragraph 5o. In accordance with the arranged thing by article 140 of Law 100 of 1993 and Decree 2090 of 2003, from the
entrance in use of this last decree, to the members of the body of safekeeping and Penitentiary monitoring and Prison National will be
applied the regime to them of high risk contemplated in he himself. To those who entered prior to this date will be applied the regime until
that then effective one for these people because of the risks of their work, this he is the arranged one to the effect by Law 32 of 1986, for
which they must have covered the corresponding quotations.
Transitory paragraph 6o. They are excepted of established by the interjection 8o. of the present article, those people who perceive an
equal or inferior pension to three (3) effective monthly legal wages minimum, if the same cause before the 31 of 2011 July, who will
receive fourteen (14) pulled pension ones to the year.
(Article modified by Decree 100 of the 20 of January of 2005 and by 2545 Decrees and 2576 of Julio of 2005)
Article 49. Public health and environmental protection are public services for which the state is responsible. All individuals are guaranteed
access to services that promote, protect, and rehabilitate public health.
It is the responsibility of the state to organize, direct, and regulate the delivery of health services and of environmental protection to the
population in accordance with the principles of efficiency, universality, and cooperation, and to establish policies for the provision of
health services by private entities and to exercise supervision and control over them. In the area of public health, the state will establish the
jurisdiction of the nation, territorial entities, and individuals, and determine the shares of their responsibilities within the limits and under
the conditions determined by law. Public health services will be organized in a decentralized manner, in accordance with levels of
responsibility and with the participation of the community.
The law will determine the limits within which basic care for all the people will be free of charge and mandatory.
Every person has the obligation to attend to the integral care of his/her health and that of his/her community.
Article 50. Any child under a year old who may not be covered by any type of protection or social security will be entitled to receive free
care in all health institutions that receive state subsidies. The law will regulate the matter.
Article 51. All Colombian citizens are entitled to live in dignity. The state will determine the conditions necessary to give effect to this right
and will promote plans for public housing, appropriate systems of long-term financing, and community plans for the execution of these
housing programs.
Article 52. The exercise of the sport, their recreational, competitive and native manifestations has like function the integral formation of
the people, to preserve and to develop one better health in the human being.
The sport and the recreation, comprise of the education and constitute social public cost.
The right of all the people is recognized the recreation, the practice of the sport and the advantage of the free time.
The State will foment these activities and will inspect, it will watch and control the sport and recreational organizations whose structure
and property will have to be democratic.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2000)
Article 53. The Congress will issue a labor statute. The appropriate law will take into account at least the following minimal fundamental
principles:
Equality of opportunity for workers; minimum basic remuneration, flexible and proportional to the amount and quality of work; stability in
employment; irrevocability of minimum benefits established in labor regulations; provision of a means to arbitrate conflicting rights; a
situation more favorable to the worker in case of doubt in the application and interpretation of the formal bases of the law; the primacy of
facts over established formalities in issues of labor relations; guarantees of social security, training, instruction, and adequate rest time,
special protection of women, mothers, and minor-age workers.
The state guarantees the right of appropriate payment and the periodic adjustment of legal retirement benefits.
International labor agreements duly ratified part of domestic legislation.
The law, contracts, agreements, and labor settlements may not infringe on the freedom, human dignity, or rights of workers.
Article 54. It is the obligation of the state and employers to offer training and professional and technical skills to whoever needs them. The
state must promote the employment of individuals of working age and guarantee to the handicapped the right to employment
appropriate to their physical condition.
Article 55. The right of collective bargaining to regulate labor relations, with the exceptions provided by law, is guaranteed.
It is the duty of the state to promote negotiation and other measures necessary for the peaceful resolution of collective labor conflicts.
Article 56. The right to strike is guaranteed, except in the case of essential public services defined by the legislature.
The law will regulate this right.
A permanent commission composed of the government, the representatives of employers and of workers, will promote sound labor
relations, contribute to the settlement of collective labor disputes, and coordinate wage and labor policies. The law will regulate
its membership and functioning.
Article 57. The law may establish incentives and means so that workers may participate in the management of enterprises.
Article 58. The private property and the other rights acquired in accordance with the civil laws are guaranteed, which cannot be not
known nor be harmed by later laws.
When from the application of a law sent by reasons for public utility or social interest, the rights of the individuals with the necessity by
recognized her are in conflict, the private interest will have to yield to the public or social interest.
The property is a social function that implies obligations.
Like so, an ecological function is to him inherent. The State will protect and promote the associative and shared in common forms of
property.
By reasons for public utility or social interest defined by the legislator, it will be able to have expropriation by means of judicial sentence
and previous indemnification.
This will pay attention consulting the interests of the community and the affected one. In the cases that the legislator determines, this
expropriation will be able to go ahead by administrative route, holds to later contentious-administrative action, even respect to the price.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 1999)
Article 59. In case of war and exclusively to meet its requirements, the need for expropriation may be decreed by the national government
without prior indemnification.
In the above case, immovable property alone may be occupied temporarily to meet the requirements of war or to assign facilities to it.
The state will always be responsible for expropriations effected by the government on its own or through its agents.
Article 60. The state will promote access to property in accordance with the law.
When the state sells its interest in an enterprise, it will take measures to promote the democratization of the ownership of its shares and
will offer its workers and the workers' organizations special terms to make it possible for them to accede to the said proprietary shares.
The law will regulate the matter.
Article 61. The state will protect intellectual property for the relevant period using the means established by law.
Article 62. The fate of intervivos or testamentary donations, effected according to the law for social purposes, may not be altered or
modified by the legislative body, unless the purpose of the donation should no longer be applicable. In this case, the law will assign the
property in question to a similar purpose.
The government will oversee the management and investment of such donations.
Article 63. Property in public use, natural parks, communal lands of ethnic groups, security zones, the archaeological resources of the
nation, and other property determined by law are inalienable, imprescriptible, and unseizable.
Article 64. It is the duty of the state to promote the gradual access of agricultural workers to landed property in individual or associational
form and to services involving education, health, housing, social security, recreation, credit, communications, the marketing of products,
technical and management assistance with the purpose of improving the incomes and quality of life of the peasants.
Article 65. The production of food crops will benefit from the special protection of the state. For that purpose, priority will be given to the
integrated development of agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, forestry, and agroindustrial activities as well as to the building of
physical infrastructural projects and to land improvement.
Similarly, the state will promote research and the transfer of technology relating to the production of food crops and primary resources of
agricultural origin in order to increase productivity.
Article 66. The provisions enacted in the field of private or public credit may regulate the special conditions of agricultural credit, taking
into account the cycles of harvests and prices as well as the risks inherent in farming activities and environmental disasters.
Article 67. Education is an individual right and a public service that has a social function.
Through education individuals seek access to knowledge, science, technology, and the other benefits and values of culture.
The Colombian citizen will be educated in the respect for human rights, peace, and democracy, and in the use of work and recreation for
cultural, scientific, and technological improvement and for the protection of the environment.
The state, society, and the family are responsible for education, which will be mandatory between the ages of five and 15 years and
which will minimally include one year of preschool instruction and nine years of basic instruction.
Education will be free of charge in the state institutions, without prejudice to those who can afford to defray the costs.
It is the responsibility of the state to perform the final inspection and supervision of education in order to control its quality, to ensure it
fulfills its purposes, and for the improved moral, intellectual, and physical training of those being educated; to guarantee an adequate
supply of the service, and to guarantee to minors the conditions necessary for their access to and retention in. The educational system.
The nation and the territorial entities will participate in the management, financing, and administration of the state educational services
within the limits provided in the Constitution and the law.
Article 68. Individuals may create educational institutions. The law will establish the conditions for their creation and management.
The educational community will participate in the management of the educational institutions.
Education will be in the care of individuals of recognized ethical and pedagogical principles. The law guarantees the professionalism and
dignity of the teaching profession.
Parents will have the right to select the type of education for their minor children. In state institutions, no person may be obliged to
receive religious instruction.
The members of ethnic groups will have the right to training that respects and develops their cultural identity.
The eradication of illiteracy and the education of individuals with physical or mental deficiencies or with exceptional capabilities are special
obligations of the state.
Article 69. The autonomy of universities is guaranteed. The universities will be able to administer and govern themselves through their
own bylaws, in accordance with the law.
The law will establish a special regime for state universities.
The state will facilitate scientific research in the public and private universities and will offer special conditions for their development.
The state will assist those financial arrangements that make possible the access of all individuals qualified for advanced education.
Article 70. The state has the obligation to promote and foster the equal access of all Colombians to their culture by means of permanent
education and scientific, technical, artistic, and professional instruction at all stages in the process of creating the national identity.
Culture in its diverse manifestations is the basis of nationality. The state recognizes the equality and dignity of all those who live together
in the country. The state will promote research, science, development, and the diffusion of the nation's cultural values.
Article 71. Freedom in the search for knowledge and artistic expression is recognized.
Plans of economic and social development will include the promotion of the sciences and of culture in general. The state will create
incentives for individuals and institutions which develop and foster science and technology and other cultural manifestations and will offer
special incentives to individuals and institutions which pursue these activities.
Article 72. The nation's cultural heritage is under the protection of the state. The nation's archaeological heritage and other cultural
resources that shape the national identity belong to the nation and are inalienable, unseizable, and imprescriptible. The law will establish the
mechanisms to restore control over those that are in the hands of individuals and will regulate the special rights that ethnic groups may
enjoy when they occupy territories of archaeological wealth.
Article 73. Journalism will enjoy such protection as necessary to guarantee its freedom and professional independence.
Article 74. Every person has a right to access to public documents except in cases established by law.
Professional secrets are inviolable.
Article 75. The electromagnetic spectrum is an inalienable and imprescriptible public resource subject to the management and control of
the state. Equality of opportunity is guaranteed in the access to its use within the limits determined by law.
To guarantee genuine pluralism and competence, the legislature will dictate the modalities of state intervention to avoid monopolistic
practices in the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Article 76. Repealed
(Article countermanded by Decree 2887 of 2001)
Article 77. The Congress of the Republic, to initiative of the Government, will send the law that will fix the policy in the matter of
television
(Article modified by Decree 2887 of 2001)
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING COLLECTIVE RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Article 78. The law will regulate the control of the quality of goods and services offered and provided to the community as well as the
information that must be made available to the public in their marketing.
Those who in the production and marketing of goods and services may jeopardize the health, safety, and adequate supply to consumers
and users will be held liable in accordance with the law.
The state will guarantee the participation of the consumer organizations in the study of the provisions that concern them. In order to enjoy
this right the organizations must be of a representative nature and observe internal democratic procedures.
Article 79. Every person has the right to enjoy a healthy environment. The law will guarantee the community's participation in the
decisions that may affect it.
It is the duty of the state to protect the diversity and integrity of the environment, to conserve areas of special ecological importance, and
to foster education for the achievement of these ends.
Article 80. The state will plan the handling and use of natural resources in order to guarantee their sustainable development, conservation
or replacement.
Additionally, it will have to prevent and control the factors of environmental deterioration, impose legal sanctions, and demand the repair
of any damage caused.
In the same way, it will cooperate with other nations in the protection of the ecosystems located in the border areas.
Article 81. The manufacture, importation, possession, and use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons are prohibited as is the
introduction into the national territory of nuclear and toxic wastes.
The state will regulate the importation and exportation of genetic resources and their use, in accordance with the national interest.
Article 82. It is the duty of the state to protect the integrity of public space and its assignment to common use, which has priority over the
individual interest.
Public entities will participate in the profits generated by their urban planning activities and will regulate the use of the soil and the urban
air space in order to protect the common interest.
CHAPTER 4
CONCERNING THE PROTECTION AND APPLICATION OF RIGHTS
Article 83. The activities of individuals and public authorities must conform to the postulates of good faith, which will he presumed in all
dealings that the former engage in with the latter.
Article 84. When a right or an activity has been regulated in a general way, the public authorities may not establish or demand permits,
licenses, or impose additional conditions for its exercise.
Article 85.The rights mentioned in Articles 11, 12,13, 14,15, 16,17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37 and 40 are
applicable immediately.
Article 86. Every person has the right to file a writ of protection before a judge, at any time or place, through a preferential and summary
proceeding, for himself/herself or by whomever acts in his/her name for the immediate protection of his/her fundamental constitutional
rights when that person fears the latter may be violated by the action or omission of any public authority.
The protection will consist of all order issued by a judge enjoining others to act or refrain from acting. The order, which must be
complied with immediately, may be challenged before a superior court judge, and in any case the latter may send it to the Constitutional
Court for possible revision.
This action will be available only when the affected party does not dispose of another means of judicial defense, except when it is used as
a temporary device to avoid irreversible harm. In no case can more than 10 days elapse between filing the writ of
protection and its resolution.
The law will establish the cases in which the writ of protection may be filed against private individuals entrusted with providing a public
service or whose conduct may affect seriously and directly the collective interest or in respect of whom the applicant may find
himself/herself in a state of subordination or vulnerability.
Article 87. Any person may appear before the legal authority to demand the application of a law or fulfillment of an administrative act. In
case of a successful action, the sentence will order the DELINQUENT authority to perform its mandated duty.
Article 88. The law will regulate popular actions for the protection of collective rights and interests related to the homeland, space, public
safety and health, administrative morality, the environment, free economic competition, and others of a similar nature.
It will also regulate the actions arising out of harm caused to a large number of individuals, without barring appropriate individual action.
In the some way, it will define cases of CIVIL LIABILITY for damage caused to collective rights and interests.
Article 89. In addition to what is mentioned in the previous articles, the law will determine the other resources, actions, and procedures
necessary so that the individual rights of groups or collectivities may be legally protected against deeds of commission or omission by the
public authorities.
Article 90. The state will answer materially for any type of damages that can be attributed to an illegal action, or caused by deeds of
commission or omission by the public authorities.
In the event that the state is ordered to compensate damage which may have been the consequence of the fraudulent or seriously criminal
behavior of one of its agents, the former will have to claim restitution from the latter.
Article 91. In the case of a manifest infraction of a constitutional precept to the disadvantage of any person, an order from a superior does
not absolve the executing agent from responsibility.
The military in the service are exempted from this provision. As far as they are concerned, responsibility will fall exclusively on the
superior officer who gives the order.
Article 92. Every person or legal entity may solicit from the competent authority the application of penal or disciplinary sanctions by
reason of the behavior of the public authorities.
Article 93. The treaties and international treaties ratified by the Congress, that recognize the human rights and that prohibit their limitation
in the states of emergency, emergency situation, prevail in the internal order.
The rights and duties consecrated in this Letter, will be interpreted in accordance with international treaties on human rights ratified by
Colombia.
The Colombian State can recognize the jurisdiction of the Penal Court the International in the terms anticipated in the adopted Statute of
Rome the 17 of July of 1998 by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries of the United Nations and, consequently, ratify this treaty in
accordance with the procedure established in this Constitution.
The admission of a treatment different in substantial matters on the part of the Statute from Rome with respect to the guarantees
contained in the Constitution will exclusively have effects within the scope of the matter regulated in him.
(Modified by Legislative Act 2/2001. 3º and 4º were added interjections.)
Article 94. The enunciation of the rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution and in international agreements in effect should not
be understood as a negation of others which, being inherent to the human being, are not expressly mentioned in them.
CHAPTER 5
CONCERNING DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS
Article 95. To be Colombian is an honor for every member of the national community of Colombia. Everyone has the duty to respect and
dignify this honor.
The exercise of liberties and rights recognized in this Constitution implies responsibilities. Every person has the duty to respect and obey
the Constitution and the laws.
The following are duties of each person and each citizen:
1. To respect others' rights and not abuse one's own.
2. To strive in accordance with the principle of social solidarity, to respond with humanitarian actions when faced with situations that
endanger the life or health of individuals.
3. To respect and support the legitimately constituted democratic authorities in their efforts to maintain national independence and integrity.
4. To defend and foster human rights as a basis of peaceful coexistence.
5. To participate in the country's political, civic, and community life.
6. To strive toward the achievement and maintenance of peace.
7. To cooperate for the sound operation of the administration of justice.
8. To protect the country's cultural and natural resources and watch over the conservation of a healthy environment.
9. To contribute to the financing of state expenditures and investments in accordance with the principles of justice and equity.
TITLE III
CONCERNING THE POPULATION AND THE TERRITORY
CHAPTER 1
CONCERNING NATIONALITY
They are national Colombians:
1. By birth:
a) The natural ones of Colombia, that with one of two conditions: that the father or the mother has been natural or national Colombians or
who, being children of foreigners, some of its parents will be domiciled in the Republic at the moment of the birth and;
b) The children of Colombian father or mother who will have been born in foreign earth and fire will domicile in Colombian territory or
will register in a consular office of the Republic.
2. By adoption:
a) The foreigners who ask for and obtain letter of naturalization, in agreement with the law, which will establish the cases in which the
Colombian nationality by adoption is lost;
b) The Latin Americans and of the Caribbean by birth domiciled in Colombia, that with authorization of the Government and in agreement
with the law and the principle of reciprocity, requests to be registered like Colombians before the municipality where they will settle
down, and;
c) The members of border the interior indigenous towns that share terr, with application of the principle of reciprocity according to
treaties public.
No Colombian by birth could be private of his nationality.
The quality of Colombian national is not lost by the fact to acquire another nationality.
The nationals by adoption will not be forced to resign to their nationality of origin or adoption.
Who have resigned to the Colombian nationality they will be able to recover it in accordance with the law.
(Article modified by Legislative Act 1/2002)
Article 97. Even when he/she has renounced citizenship status, the Colombian
who acts in opposition to the country's interests when Colombia is involved in a foreign war will be tried and sentenced as a traitor.
Colombian citizens by naturalization and aliens domiciled in Colombia cannot be obligated to take up arms against their country of origin;
neither may Colombians who have acquired citizenship abroad against the country of their new citizenship.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING CITIZENSHIP
Article 98. Citizenship is lost de facto when an individual has renounced it, and its exercise may be suspended by virtue of a legal decision
in the cases determined by law.
Those persons whose citizenship has been suspended may request its restoration.
Unless the law states otherwise, citizenship status will be exercised beginning at age 18.
Article 99. Being a citizen in good standing is a prior and indispensable condition for exercising one's right of suffrage, to be elected, and
to hold public office involving authority or jurisdiction.
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING ALIENS
Article 100. Aliens in Colombia will enjoy the same civil rights as Colombian citizens.
Notwithstanding, for reasons of public order, the law may impose special conditions on or nullify the exercise of specific civil rights by
aliens.
Similarly, aliens will enjoy, in the territory of the Republic, guarantees granted to citizens, except for the limitations established by the
Constitution or the law.
Political rights are reserved to citizens, but the law may grant to aliens resident in Colombia the fight to vote in elections and in popular
consultations at the municipal or district level.
CHAPTER 4
CONCERNING TERRITORY
Article 101. The borders of Colombia are those established in international treaties approved by the Congress, duly ratified by the
President of the Republic, mid those defined by arbitration awards in which Colombia takes part.
The borders identified in the form provided for by this Constitution may he modified only by treaties approved by the Congress and duly
ratified by the President of the Republic.
Besides the continental territory, the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia. Santa Catalina, and Malpelo are part of Colombia, in addition
to the islands, islets, keys, headlands, and sand banks that belong to it.
Also part of Colombia is the subsoil, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the
airspace, the segment of the geostationary orbit, the electromagnetic spectrum and the space in which it operates, in accordance with
international law or the laws of Colombia in the absence of international regulations.
Article 102. The territory, together with the public resources that are part of it, belong to the nation.
TITLE IV
CONCERNING DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL PARTIES
CHAPTER 1
CONCERNING THE FORMS OF DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION
Article 103. The following are the people's means of participating in the exercise of their sovereignty: the vote, the plebiscite, the
referendum, the popular consultation, the open town council meeting, the legislative initiative, and the recall of officials. The law will
regulate these matters. The state will contribute to the organization, promotion, and guidance of professional, civic, trade union,
community, youth and charitable or nongovernmental public-purpose associations, without prejudicing their authority so that they may
constitute democratic means of representation in the various functions of participation, agreement, control, and supervision of the public
activities that they undertake.
Article 104. The President of the Republic, with the approval of the ministers and the prior approval of the Senate of the Republic, may
consult the people on matters of great national importance. The people's decision will be binding. Such consultation may not be
concurrent with an election.
Article 105. Upon the fulfillment of the requirements and formalities prescribed by the general statute of the territorial organization and in
the cases determined by the latter, the governors or mayors, as the case may be, will be entitled to hold popular consultations to decide
issues failing under the jurisdiction of their respective department or municipality.
Article 106. Upon the fulfillment of the requirements that the law prescribes, the people of the territorial entities may present bills
concerning issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the respective public entity, which is obligated to implement them.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING PARTIES AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
Article 107.It is guaranteed to all the citizens the right to found, to organize and to develop to parties and political movements, and the
freedom to affiliate themselves with them or to retire. In no case it will be allowed the citizens to belong simultaneously to more of a
political party or movement with legal function and position of agent.
The political parties and movements will be organized democratically. For the taking of his decisions or the escogencia of his candidates
they will be able to celebrate popular or internal consultations that they agree or not with the elections to public corporations, in agreement
with the anticipated thing in his statutes.
In the case of the popular consultations to the norms on financing and publicity of campaigns and access to the mass media of the State
will be applied, that prevail for the ordinary elections.
Who participates in the consultations of a party or political movement she will not be able to register by another one in he himself electoral
process.
Also the right is guaranteed to the social organizations to pronounce itself and to participate in political events.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 108.The Electoral National Council will recognize legal function and position of agent the parties, political movements and
significant groups of citizens.
These will be able to validly obtain them with non inferior voting to the two percent (2%) of the votes emitted in the national territory in
elections of House of Representatives or Senate.
They will lose them if they do not obtain that percentage in the elections of the same Public Corporations.
The exceptional regime is excepted that statute in the law for the circumscriptions of minorities, in which it will be enough to have
obtained representation in the Congress.
The political parties and movements with recognized legal function and position of agent will be able to register candidates to elections
without additional requirement some. This inscription will have such to be guaranteed for effects by the respective legal representative of
the party or movement or by that he delegates. The social movements and significant groups of citizens also will be able to register
candidates. The law will determine the requirements of seriousness for the inscription of candidates.
The political statutes of the parties and movements will regulate the ascension to their internal disciplinary regime.
The members of the Public Corporations chosen by a same party or political or citizen movement will act in them like large stone bench in
the terms that the law indicates and in accordance with the decisions made democratically by these.
The internal statutes of the parties and political movements will determine the conscience subjects respect to which east regime will not be
applied and will be able to establish sanctions by the nonobservance of its directives on the part of the members of the large stone
benches, which will pay attention gradually until the expulsion, and will be able to include the loss of the right of vote of the congressman,
deputy, councilman or edile by the rest of the period for which it was chosen.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH 1. The political parties and movements with recognized Legal Function and position of agent at the moment
and representation in the Congress, will conserve such function and position of agent until the following elections of Congress that are
made after the promulgation of the present Legislative Act, of whose results will depend that they conserve it in agreement with the rules
arranged in the Constitution. For effects to participate in anyone of the elections that are made from the entrance in use of this
Reformation to the following elections of Congress, the political parties and movements with representation in the Congress they will be
able to be grouped whenever they fulfill the requirements of voting demanded in the Reformation present for the obtaining of the legal
functions and position of agent of the parties and political movements and obtain legal function and position of agent that it will replace to
the one of those who is grouped. The new grouping thus constituted will enjoy the benefits and will fulfill the obligations, consecrated in
the Constitution for the parties and political movements in electoral matter.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH 2. A plural number of Senators or Representatives to the Camera, whose sum total of votes in the last
elections of Congress has obtained more than the two percent (2%) of the valid votes emitted for the Seine do of the Republic in the
National Territory, will be able to ask for the recognition of the legal Function and position of agent of party or political movement. This
norm will prevail by three (3) months from its promulgation.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 109. The State will concur to the financing of the parties and political movements with legal function and position of agent, in
accordance with the law.
The campaigns that advance to the parties and movements with legal function and position of agent and the significant groups of citizens
that candidates postulate will be financed with state resources by means of the system of replacement by deposited votes.
The law will determine the percentage of voting necessary to have right to this financing. Also the amount of the expenses that the parties,
movements or candidates can make in the electoral campaigns, as well as the Maxima will be able to be limited quantity of the deprived
contributions, in agreement with the law.
The campaigns to choose President of the Republic will have access to a maximum of advertising spaces and institutional spaces of radio
and television paid for by the State, to those candidates of parties, movements and significant groups of citizens whose postulation fulfills
the seriousness requirements that, for the effect, determine the law.
For the elections that are celebrated from the use of the present legislative act, the violation of the maximum tops of financing of the
campaigns, properly verified, will be sanctioned with the loss of investiture or the position.
The law will regulate the other effects by the violation of this rule.
The parties, movements and candidates will have to publicly render accounts on the volume, origin and destiny of their income.
PARAGRAPH. The annual financing of the parties and political movements with Legal Function and position of agent will promote like
two minimum to point seven times the contributed one in 2003, maintaining its value in the time. The quantity of the financing of the
campaigns of the parties and political movements with legal function and position of agent will be at least three times the contributed one
in period 1999-2002 in constant weights of 2003. It includes the cost of the transport of the day of elections and the cost of the tax
exemptions of mail today financed. The internal popular consultations of the parties and movements that decide on this mechanism will
receive financing by means of the system of replacement by deposited votes, maintaining for it the value in constant weights effective at
the moment of approval of this Legislative Act.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH. The Congress will regulate these matters. As for the departmental and municipal elections, such regulation
will have to be ready to more taking three months before its accomplishment. If he will not do it, the National Government will dictate a
decree with law force before the closing of the corresponding inscriptions.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 110. Public employees are prohibited from making any contribution whatever to the parties, movements, or candidates or to induce
others to do so, with the exceptions established by law. Noncompliance with any of these prohibitions will be cause for dismissal from
office or loss of investiture.
Article 111. The political parties and movements with legal function and position of agent must right to use the mass media that make use
of the electromagnetic spectrum, in all time, according to the law. It will also settle down the cases and the form like the political parties,
movements and the candidates properly registered, will have access to these means.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING THE STATUS AND GUARANTEES OF THE OPPOSITION
Article 112. The political parties and movements with legal function and position of agent that declares in opposition the Government, will
be able to exert the critical function freely forehead to this, and to raise and to develop political alternatives. For these effects, the
following rights will be guaranteed to them: the access to the information and the official documents, with the constitutional and legal
restrictions; the use of social mass media of the State or in which they make use of the electromagnetic spectrum in agreement with the
representation obtained in the immediately previous elections for Congress; the mass media retort such. The minority parties and
movements with legal function and position of agent will have right to participate in the directive tables of the bodies collegiate, according
to their representation in them. A statutory law will regulate the matter completely.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
TITLE I
CONCERNING FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
Article 1. Colombia is a legal social state organized in the form of a unitary republic, decentralized, withe the autonomy of its territorial
units, democratic, participatory and pluralistic, based on respect of human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the individuals who
belong to it, and the predominance of the general interest.
Article 2. The essential goals of the state are to serve the community, promote general prosperity, and guarantee the effectiveness of the
principles, rights, and duties stipulated by the Constitution; to facilitate the participation of all in the decisions that affect them and in the
economic, political, administrative, mid cultural life of the nation; to defend national independence, maintain territorial integrity, and ensure
peaceful coexistence and the enforcement of a just order.
The authorities of the Republic are established in order to protect all persons residing in Colombia, their life, dignity, property, beliefs, and
other rights and freedoms, and in order to ensure the fulfillment of the social duties of the state and individuals.
Article 3. Sovereignty resides exclusively in the people from whom public power emanates. The people exercise it in direct form or
through their representatives within the limits established by the Constitution.
Article 4. The Constitution is the supreme law. In all cases of incompatibility between the Constitution and the law or any other legislation
or regulation, the constitutional provisions will apply.
It is the duty of citizens and of aliens in Colombia to abide by the Constitution and the laws, and to respect and obey the authorities.
Article 5. The state recognizes, without any discrimination whatsoever, the primacy of the inalienable rights of the individual and protects
the family as the basic institution of society.
Article 6. Each person is individually responsible before the authorities for violations of the Constitution and the laws. Civil servants are
responsible for the same reason, and likewise for omission or acting "ultra vires" in the exercise of their functions.
Article 7. The state recognizes and protects the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Colombian nation.
Article 8.It is the obligation of the state and of individuals to protect the cultural and natural assets of the nation.
Article 9. The external relations of the state are based on national sovereignty, on respect for the self-determination of peoples, and on the
recognition of the principles of international law approved by Colombia.
In the same manner, the foreign policy of Colombia will be oriented toward the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Article 10. Spanish is the official language of Colombia. The languages and dialects of ethnic groups are also official in their territories.
The education provided in communities with their own linguistic traditions will be bilingual.
TITLE II
CONCERNING RIGHTS, GUARANTEES, AND DUTIES
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Article 11. The right to life is inviolable. There will be no death penalty.
Article 12. No one will be subjected to forced imprisonment, nor submitted to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or
punishment.
Article 13. All individuals are born free and equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection and treatment by the authorities, and
to enjoy the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, national or family origin,
language, religion, political opinion, or philosophy.
The state will promote the conditions necessary in order that equality may be real and effective will adopt measures in favor of groups
which are discriminated against or marginalized.
The state will especially protect those individuals who on account of their economic, physical, or mental condition are in obviously
vulnerable circumstances and will sanction any abuse or ill-treatment perpetrated against them.
Article 14. Every individual has the right to he legally recognized as a person.
Article 15. All the people have right to their personal and familiar privacy and its good reputation, and the State must respect them and
make respect them. Equally, they must right to know, to update and to rectify the information that have taken shelter on them in the data
banks and archives of public and deprived organizations.
In the harvesting, treatment and circulation of data will be respected the freedom and other guarantees consecrated in the Constitution.
The correspondence and other forms of private communication are inviolable. They only can be intercepted or be registered by means of
judicial order, in the cases and with the formalities that the law establishes.
With the purpose of preventing the commission with terrorist acts, a statutory law will regulate the form and conditions in which the
authorities that it indicates, with foundation in serious reasons, can intercept or register the correspondence and other forms of deprived
communication, without previous judicial order, with warning immediate to the General Office of the judge advocate general of the Nation
and later judicial control within the thirty and six (36) hours following. When initiating every period of sessions the Gobierno will render
report to the Congress on the use that has become of this faculty. The civil employees who abuse the measures to that east article talks
about will incur very serious lack, without damage of the other responsibilities to that there will be place.
For judicial tributary effects and the cases of inspection, monitoring and intervention of the State, he will be able to demand accounting
the deprived book presentation and other documents, in the terms that the law indicates.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 16. All persons are entitled to their free personal development without limitations other than those imposed by the rights of others
and those which are prescribed by the legal system.
Article 17. Slavery, servitude, and the slave trade in all forms are prohibited.
Article 18. Freedom of conscience is guaranteed. No one will be importuned on account of his/her convictions or beliefs or compelled to
reveal them or obliged to act against his/her conscience.
Article 19. Freedom of religion is guaranteed. Every individual has the right to freely profess his/her religion and to disseminate it
individually or collectively. All religious faiths and churches are equally free before the law.
Article 20. Every individual is guaranteed the freedom to express and diffuse his/her thoughts and opinions, to transmit and receive
information that is true and impartial, and to establish mass communications media.
The mass media are free and have a social responsibility. The right of rectification under equitable conditions is guaranteed. There will be
no censorship.
Article 21. The right to dignity is guaranteed. The law will provide the manner in which it will be upheld.
Article 22. Peace is a right and a duty whose compliance is mandatory.
Article 23. Every person has the right to present petitions to the authorities for the general or private interest and to secure their prompt
resolution. The legislative body may regulate the presentation of petitions to private organizations in order to guarantee fundamental rights.
Article 24. All Colombian, with the limitations that the law establishes, must right to circulate freely around the national territory, to enter
and to leave him, and to remain and to call to account themselves in Colombia.
The National Government will be able to establish the obligation to take a report of residence of the inhabitants of the national territory, in
accordance with the statutory law that is sent for the effect.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 25. Work is a right and a social obligation and in all its forms enjoys the special protection of the state. Every person is entitled to a
job under dignified and equitable conditions.
Article 26. Every person is free to choose a profession or occupation. The law may require certificates of competence. The competent
authorities will inspect and supervise the exercise of the professions. Occupations, the arts, and work that do not require academic
training are to be freely exercised, except for those which involve a risk to society.
Legally recognized professions may be organized into professional associations. The internal structure and operation of the latter must be
democratic. The law may assign public functions to them and establish the appropriate controls.
Article 27. The state guarantees freedom of teaching at the primary and secondary level, training, research, and professorship.
Article 28. Every person is free. Nobody can be bothered in its person or family, neither reduced to prison or arrest, nor prisoner, nor his
registered address, but by virtue of written order of competent judicial authority, with the legal formalities and by reason previously
defined in the law.
The lengthy person preventively will be made available of the competent judge within the thirty and six (36) hours following, so that this
she makes the corresponding decision in the term that establishes the law.
In no case she will be able to have halting, prison neither arrest by debts, nor pains and imprescriptible safety measures.
A statutory law will regulate the form in which, without previous judicial order, the authorities that it indicates can make haltings,
levellings and house searches, with warning immediate to the General Office of the judge advocate general of the Nation and later judicial
control within the thirty and six (36) hours following, whenever serious reasons exist to prevent the commission with terrorist acts. When
initiating every period of sessions the Government will render report to the Congress on the use that has become of this faculty. The civil
employees who abuse the measures to that east article talks about will incur very serious lack, without damage of the other responsibilities
to that there will be place.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2003)
Article 29. Due process will apply to all legal and administrative measures.
No one may be judged except in accordance with the relevant previously written laws before a competent judge or tribunal following all
appropriate formalities in each trial.
In penal cases, a permissive or favorable law, even when ex post facto, will be applied in preference to restrictive or unfavorable
alternatives.
Every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to the law. Everyone criminally charged is entitled to a defense and the
assistance of counsel chosen by the accused or assigned during the investigation and trial; to a fair and public hearing without
undue delay; to present evidence and to examine witnesses for the prosecution; to challenge the conviction; and not to be subject to
double jeopardy for the same act.
Evidence obtained in violation of due process is null and void as of right.
Article 30. Whoever is deprived of his/her freedom and believes it to be unlawful is entitled to invoke habeas corpus before any judicial
authority, at any time, on his/her own or through a third party, and that judicial authority must decide within 36 hours the
lawfulness of the detention.
Article 31. Any lawful conviction may be appealed or reviewed, but for exceptions provided by law.
When the accused is the sole appellant, the higher court may not impose a heavier penalty.
Article 32. The criminal who is caught in flagrante delicto may be apprehended and taken before a judge by any individual. Should he/she
be pursued by the agents of law and order and take refuge in his/her own home, the law enforcement agents may enter the domicile to
apprehend the criminal. Should he/she be caught in somebody else's home, a request to the resident will have to be made before entering.
Article 33. No one may be forced to testify against himself/herself or his/her spouse, permanent companion, or kin to the fourth level of
consanguinity, affinity two ranks removed, or one rank removed in civil law.
Article 34. Deportation, life imprisonment, or confiscation of property are prohibited.
However, a judicial sentence may nullify ownership of property acquired by unjust enrichment, when it is injurious to the public treasury
or seriously harmful to social morality.
Article 35. Extradition mat be requested to be granted or to be offered in agreement with treaties public and, in its defect, with the law.
In addition, the extradition of the Colombians by birth will be granted by crimes committed in the outside, considered like such in the
Colombian penal legislation. The Law will regulate the matter.
The extradition will not come by political crimes.
The extradition will not come when it is facts committed prior to the promulgation of the present norm.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 1997)
Article 36. The right of asylum is recognized within the limits provided by law.
Article 37. Any group of individuals may gather and demonstrate publicly and peacefully. The law alone may establish in specific manner
those cases in which the exercise of this right may be limited.
Article 38. The right of free association for the promotion of various activities that individuals pursue in society is guaranteed.
Article 39. Workers and employers have the right to form trade unions or associations without interference by the state. Their legal status
will be recognized by the simple registration of their constituent act.
The internal structure and functioning of the trade unions and social or labor organizations will be subject to the legal order and to
democratic principles.
The cancellation or suspension of legal status may only occur through legal means.
Jurisdiction and other guarantees necessary for the performance of their functions is recognized to trade union representatives.
Members of the public force (national police and armed forces) do not have the right to form associations.
Article 40. Any citizen has the right to participate in the establishment, exercise, and control of political power. To make this decree
effective the citizen may:
1. Vote and be elected.
2. Participate in elections, plebiscites, referendums, popular consultations, and other forms of democratic participation.
3.Constitute parties, political movements, or groups without any limit whatsoever; freely participate in them and diffuse their ideas and
programs.
4. Revoke the mandate of those elected in cases where it applies and in the form provided by the Constitution and the law.
5. Act in public bodies.
6. File public actions in defense of the Constitution and the law.
7. Hold public office, except for those Colombian citizens, native-born or naturalized, who hold dual citizenship. The law will regulate this
exception and will determine the cases where it applies.
The authorities will guarantee the adequate and effective participation of women in the decision making ranks of the public administration.
Article 41. In all educational institutions, public or private, the study of the Constitution and civics will be mandatory. In this way,
democratic practices will be promoted through the teaching of principles and the value of the citizens' participation will be promoted.
The state will publicize the Constitution.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
Article 42. The family is the basic nucleus of society. It is formed on the basis of natural or legal ties, by the free decision of a man and
woman to contract matrimony or by their responsible resolve to comply with it.
The state and society guarantee the integral protection of the family. The law may determine the inalienable and unseizable family
patrimony. The family's honor, dignity, and intimacy are inviolable.
Family relations are based on the equality of rights and duties of the couple and on the mutual respect of all its members. Any form of
violence in the family is considered destructive of its harmony and unity, and will be sanctioned according to law.
The children born of a matrimony or outside it, adopted or conceived naturally or with scientific assistance, have equal rights and duties.
The law will regulate responsibility to the offspring.
The couple has the right to decide freely and responsibly the number of their children and will have to support them and educate them
while they are minors or non-self-supporting.
The forms of marriage, the age and qualifications to contract it, the duties and rights of the spouses, their separation and the dissolution of
the marriage ties are determined by civil law.
Religious marriages will have civil effects within the limits established by law
The civil effects of all marriages may be determined by divorce in accordance with civil law.
Also, decrees of annulment of religious marriages issued by the authorities of the respective faiths shall have civil effects within the limits
established by law.
The law will determine matters relating to the civil status of individuals and the consequent rights and duties.
Article 43. Women and men have equal rights and opportunities. Women cannot be subjected to any type of discrimination. During their
periods of pregnancy and following delivery, women will benefit from the special assistance and protection of the state and will receive
from the latter food subsidies if they should thereafter find themselves unemployed or abandoned.
The state will support the female head of household in a special way.
Article 44. The following are basic rights of children: life, physical integrity, health and social security, a balanced diet, their name and
citizenship, to have a family and not be separated from it, care and love, instruction and culture, recreation, and the free expression of
their opinions. They will be protected against all forms of abandonment, physical or moral violence, imprisonment, sale, sexual abuse,
work or economic exploitation, and dangerous work. They will also enjoy other rights upheld in the Constitution, the laws, and
international treaties ratified by Colombia.
The family, society, and the state have the obligation to assist and protect children in order to guarantee their harmonious and complete
development and the full exercise of their rights. Any person may request the Competent authority to enforce these rights and to sanction
those who violate them.
The rights of children have priority over the rights of others.
Article 45. The adolescent is entitled to protection and integral development. The state and society guarantee the active participation of
adolescents in public and private organizations that are responsible for the protection, education, and progress of youth.
Article 46. The state, the society, and the family will all participate in protecting and assisting senior citizens and will promote their
integration into active and community life.
The state will guarantee them services of social security and food subsidies in cases of indigence.
Article 47. The state will promote a policy of planning, rehabilitation, and social integration for those who are physically, emotionally, or
psychologically handicapped and will provide the specialized attention that they need.
I ARTICULATE 48. The Social Security is a public service of obligatory character that it will be lent under the direction, coordination and
control of the State, in subjection to the principles of efficiency, universality and solidarity, in the terms that the Law establishes.
The cannot be waived right to the Social Security is guaranteed to all the inhabitants.
The State, with the participation of the individuals, will progressively extend the cover of the Social Security that will include/understand
the benefit of the services in the form that determines the Law.
The Social Security could be lent by public or deprived organizations, in accordance with the law.
The resources of the institutions of the Social Security will not be able to be destined nor to be used for aims different from her.
The law will define means so that the resources destined to pensions maintain their spending power constant.
The State will guarantee the rights, the financial sustainability of the Pension System, will respect the rights acquired in accordance with
the law and will assume the payment of the pensionary debt that in agreement with the law is to its position. The laws in pensionary
matter that are sent after the entrance in use of this legislative act, will have to assure the financial sustainability the established thing in
them.
Without damage of the discounts or deductions and embargoes to pensions ordered in agreement with the law, by no reason it will be able
to be let pay, be congealed or be reduced the value of the pulled one of the pensions recognized according to right.
In order to acquire the right to the pension it will be necessary to fulfill the age, the time on watch, the weeks of quotation or the
necessary capital, as well as the other conditions that the law indicates, without damage of arranged to the disability pensions and the
sobreexperience. The requirements and benefits to acquire the right to an sobreexperience or disability pension will be the established ones
by the laws of the General System of Pensions.
In pensionary matter all the acquired rights will be respected.
The pensionary requirements and benefits for all the people, including those of pension of oldness by activities of high risk, will be the
established ones in the laws of the General System of Pensions. Agreement will not be able to be dictated disposition or to be invoked
some to separate from established there.
For the liquidation of the pensions the factors will only consider on which each person will have carried out the quotations. No pension
could be inferior to the effective monthly legal wage minimum. Nevertheless, the law will be able to determine the cases in that inferior
periodic economic benefits can be granted to the minimum wage, to people of limited resources that do not fulfill the required conditions
to have right to a pension.
From the use of the present Legislative Act, there will be special nor no excepted regimes, without damage of the applicable one to the
public force, the President of the Republic and the established thing in the paragraphs of the present article.
The people whose right to the pension she is caused from the use of the present Legislative Act will not be able to receive more than
thirteen (13) pulled pension ones to the year. She is understood that the pension cause when all the requirements are fulfilled to accede to
her, had even though not taken place the recognition.
The law will establish a brief procedure for the revision of the pensions recognized with abuse of the right or without the fulfillment of the
requirements established in the law or the conventions and by arbitration ruling validly celebrated.
Paragraph 1o. From the 31 of 2010 July, pensions superior to twenty-five (25) effective monthly legal wages will not be able to be caused
minimum, with position to resources of public nature.
Paragraph 2o. From the use of the present Legislative Act they will not be able to settle down in pacts, collective conventions of work,
ruling or legal transaction some, pension conditions different from the established ones in the laws of the General System of Pensions.
Transitory paragraph 1o. The pensionary regime of the educational nationals, nationalized and territorial, tie to the public service educative
official is the established one for the Teaching in the effective legal dispositions prior to the entrance in evidence to of Law 812 of 2003,
and the presumption of article 81 of this. The educational ones which they are had tie or they tie from the use of the mentioned law, will
have the established right of prime average in the laws of the General System of Pensions, in the terms of article 81 of Law 812 of 2003.
Transitory paragraph 2o. Without damage of the acquired rights, the regime applicable to the members of the Public Force and to the
President of the Republic, and the established thing in the paragraphs of the present article, the use of special the pension regimes, the
excepted ones, as well as any other different one from the established one of permanent way in the laws of the General System of
Pensions will expire the 31 of July of year 2010.
Transitory paragraph 3o. The rules of pensionary character that prevail to the date of use of this Legislative Act contained in pacts,
collective conventions of work, ruling or agreements validly celebrated, will stay by the term initially stipulated. In the pacts, conventions
or ruling that subscribe between the use of this Legislative Act and the 31 of 2010 July, pension conditions more favorable will not be
able stipulate than those than they are effective at the moment. In any case the 31 of 2010 July will lose use.
Transitory paragraph 4o. The regime of transition established in Law 100 of 1993 and other norms that develop this regime, will not be
able to extend beyond the 31 of 2010 July; except for the workers whom being in this regime, in addition, they have quoted at least to 750
weeks or their equivalent one in uptime to the entrance in use of the present Legislative Act, to which this regime will stay to them until
year 2014.
The pension requirements and benefits for the people sheltered by this regime will be the demanded ones by article 36 of Law 100 of
1993 and other norms that develop this regime.
Transitory paragraph 5o. In accordance with the arranged thing by article 140 of Law 100 of 1993 and Decree 2090 of 2003, from the
entrance in use of this last decree, to the members of the body of safekeeping and Penitentiary monitoring and Prison National will be
applied the regime to them of high risk contemplated in he himself. To those who entered prior to this date will be applied the regime until
that then effective one for these people because of the risks of their work, this he is the arranged one to the effect by Law 32 of 1986, for
which they must have covered the corresponding quotations.
Transitory paragraph 6o. They are excepted of established by the interjection 8o. of the present article, those people who perceive an
equal or inferior pension to three (3) effective monthly legal wages minimum, if the same cause before the 31 of 2011 July, who will
receive fourteen (14) pulled pension ones to the year.
(Article modified by Decree 100 of the 20 of January of 2005 and by 2545 Decrees and 2576 of Julio of 2005)
Article 49. Public health and environmental protection are public services for which the state is responsible. All individuals are guaranteed
access to services that promote, protect, and rehabilitate public health.
It is the responsibility of the state to organize, direct, and regulate the delivery of health services and of environmental protection to the
population in accordance with the principles of efficiency, universality, and cooperation, and to establish policies for the provision of
health services by private entities and to exercise supervision and control over them. In the area of public health, the state will establish the
jurisdiction of the nation, territorial entities, and individuals, and determine the shares of their responsibilities within the limits and under
the conditions determined by law. Public health services will be organized in a decentralized manner, in accordance with levels of
responsibility and with the participation of the community.
The law will determine the limits within which basic care for all the people will be free of charge and mandatory.
Every person has the obligation to attend to the integral care of his/her health and that of his/her community.
Article 50. Any child under a year old who may not be covered by any type of protection or social security will be entitled to receive free
care in all health institutions that receive state subsidies. The law will regulate the matter.
Article 51. All Colombian citizens are entitled to live in dignity. The state will determine the conditions necessary to give effect to this right
and will promote plans for public housing, appropriate systems of long-term financing, and community plans for the execution of these
housing programs.
Article 52. The exercise of the sport, their recreational, competitive and native manifestations has like function the integral formation of
the people, to preserve and to develop one better health in the human being.
The sport and the recreation, comprise of the education and constitute social public cost.
The right of all the people is recognized the recreation, the practice of the sport and the advantage of the free time.
The State will foment these activities and will inspect, it will watch and control the sport and recreational organizations whose structure
and property will have to be democratic.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 2 of 2000)
Article 53. The Congress will issue a labor statute. The appropriate law will take into account at least the following minimal fundamental
principles:
Equality of opportunity for workers; minimum basic remuneration, flexible and proportional to the amount and quality of work; stability in
employment; irrevocability of minimum benefits established in labor regulations; provision of a means to arbitrate conflicting rights; a
situation more favorable to the worker in case of doubt in the application and interpretation of the formal bases of the law; the primacy of
facts over established formalities in issues of labor relations; guarantees of social security, training, instruction, and adequate rest time,
special protection of women, mothers, and minor-age workers.
The state guarantees the right of appropriate payment and the periodic adjustment of legal retirement benefits.
International labor agreements duly ratified part of domestic legislation.
The law, contracts, agreements, and labor settlements may not infringe on the freedom, human dignity, or rights of workers.
Article 54. It is the obligation of the state and employers to offer training and professional and technical skills to whoever needs them. The
state must promote the employment of individuals of working age and guarantee to the handicapped the right to employment
appropriate to their physical condition.
Article 55. The right of collective bargaining to regulate labor relations, with the exceptions provided by law, is guaranteed.
It is the duty of the state to promote negotiation and other measures necessary for the peaceful resolution of collective labor conflicts.
Article 56. The right to strike is guaranteed, except in the case of essential public services defined by the legislature.
The law will regulate this right.
A permanent commission composed of the government, the representatives of employers and of workers, will promote sound labor
relations, contribute to the settlement of collective labor disputes, and coordinate wage and labor policies. The law will regulate
its membership and functioning.
Article 57. The law may establish incentives and means so that workers may participate in the management of enterprises.
Article 58. The private property and the other rights acquired in accordance with the civil laws are guaranteed, which cannot be not
known nor be harmed by later laws.
When from the application of a law sent by reasons for public utility or social interest, the rights of the individuals with the necessity by
recognized her are in conflict, the private interest will have to yield to the public or social interest.
The property is a social function that implies obligations.
Like so, an ecological function is to him inherent. The State will protect and promote the associative and shared in common forms of
property.
By reasons for public utility or social interest defined by the legislator, it will be able to have expropriation by means of judicial sentence
and previous indemnification.
This will pay attention consulting the interests of the community and the affected one. In the cases that the legislator determines, this
expropriation will be able to go ahead by administrative route, holds to later contentious-administrative action, even respect to the price.
(Modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 1999)
Article 59. In case of war and exclusively to meet its requirements, the need for expropriation may be decreed by the national government
without prior indemnification.
In the above case, immovable property alone may be occupied temporarily to meet the requirements of war or to assign facilities to it.
The state will always be responsible for expropriations effected by the government on its own or through its agents.
Article 60. The state will promote access to property in accordance with the law.
When the state sells its interest in an enterprise, it will take measures to promote the democratization of the ownership of its shares and
will offer its workers and the workers' organizations special terms to make it possible for them to accede to the said proprietary shares.
The law will regulate the matter.
Article 61. The state will protect intellectual property for the relevant period using the means established by law.
Article 62. The fate of intervivos or testamentary donations, effected according to the law for social purposes, may not be altered or
modified by the legislative body, unless the purpose of the donation should no longer be applicable. In this case, the law will assign the
property in question to a similar purpose.
The government will oversee the management and investment of such donations.
Article 63. Property in public use, natural parks, communal lands of ethnic groups, security zones, the archaeological resources of the
nation, and other property determined by law are inalienable, imprescriptible, and unseizable.
Article 64. It is the duty of the state to promote the gradual access of agricultural workers to landed property in individual or associational
form and to services involving education, health, housing, social security, recreation, credit, communications, the marketing of products,
technical and management assistance with the purpose of improving the incomes and quality of life of the peasants.
Article 65. The production of food crops will benefit from the special protection of the state. For that purpose, priority will be given to the
integrated development of agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, forestry, and agroindustrial activities as well as to the building of
physical infrastructural projects and to land improvement.
Similarly, the state will promote research and the transfer of technology relating to the production of food crops and primary resources of
agricultural origin in order to increase productivity.
Article 66. The provisions enacted in the field of private or public credit may regulate the special conditions of agricultural credit, taking
into account the cycles of harvests and prices as well as the risks inherent in farming activities and environmental disasters.
Article 67. Education is an individual right and a public service that has a social function.
Through education individuals seek access to knowledge, science, technology, and the other benefits and values of culture.
The Colombian citizen will be educated in the respect for human rights, peace, and democracy, and in the use of work and recreation for
cultural, scientific, and technological improvement and for the protection of the environment.
The state, society, and the family are responsible for education, which will be mandatory between the ages of five and 15 years and
which will minimally include one year of preschool instruction and nine years of basic instruction.
Education will be free of charge in the state institutions, without prejudice to those who can afford to defray the costs.
It is the responsibility of the state to perform the final inspection and supervision of education in order to control its quality, to ensure it
fulfills its purposes, and for the improved moral, intellectual, and physical training of those being educated; to guarantee an adequate
supply of the service, and to guarantee to minors the conditions necessary for their access to and retention in. The educational system.
The nation and the territorial entities will participate in the management, financing, and administration of the state educational services
within the limits provided in the Constitution and the law.
Article 68. Individuals may create educational institutions. The law will establish the conditions for their creation and management.
The educational community will participate in the management of the educational institutions.
Education will be in the care of individuals of recognized ethical and pedagogical principles. The law guarantees the professionalism and
dignity of the teaching profession.
Parents will have the right to select the type of education for their minor children. In state institutions, no person may be obliged to
receive religious instruction.
The members of ethnic groups will have the right to training that respects and develops their cultural identity.
The eradication of illiteracy and the education of individuals with physical or mental deficiencies or with exceptional capabilities are special
obligations of the state.
Article 69. The autonomy of universities is guaranteed. The universities will be able to administer and govern themselves through their
own bylaws, in accordance with the law.
The law will establish a special regime for state universities.
The state will facilitate scientific research in the public and private universities and will offer special conditions for their development.
The state will assist those financial arrangements that make possible the access of all individuals qualified for advanced education.
Article 70. The state has the obligation to promote and foster the equal access of all Colombians to their culture by means of permanent
education and scientific, technical, artistic, and professional instruction at all stages in the process of creating the national identity.
Culture in its diverse manifestations is the basis of nationality. The state recognizes the equality and dignity of all those who live together
in the country. The state will promote research, science, development, and the diffusion of the nation's cultural values.
Article 71. Freedom in the search for knowledge and artistic expression is recognized.
Plans of economic and social development will include the promotion of the sciences and of culture in general. The state will create
incentives for individuals and institutions which develop and foster science and technology and other cultural manifestations and will offer
special incentives to individuals and institutions which pursue these activities.
Article 72. The nation's cultural heritage is under the protection of the state. The nation's archaeological heritage and other cultural
resources that shape the national identity belong to the nation and are inalienable, unseizable, and imprescriptible. The law will establish the
mechanisms to restore control over those that are in the hands of individuals and will regulate the special rights that ethnic groups may
enjoy when they occupy territories of archaeological wealth.
Article 73. Journalism will enjoy such protection as necessary to guarantee its freedom and professional independence.
Article 74. Every person has a right to access to public documents except in cases established by law.
Professional secrets are inviolable.
Article 75. The electromagnetic spectrum is an inalienable and imprescriptible public resource subject to the management and control of
the state. Equality of opportunity is guaranteed in the access to its use within the limits determined by law.
To guarantee genuine pluralism and competence, the legislature will dictate the modalities of state intervention to avoid monopolistic
practices in the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Article 76. Repealed
(Article countermanded by Decree 2887 of 2001)
Article 77. The Congress of the Republic, to initiative of the Government, will send the law that will fix the policy in the matter of
television
(Article modified by Decree 2887 of 2001)
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING COLLECTIVE RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Article 78. The law will regulate the control of the quality of goods and services offered and provided to the community as well as the
information that must be made available to the public in their marketing.
Those who in the production and marketing of goods and services may jeopardize the health, safety, and adequate supply to consumers
and users will be held liable in accordance with the law.
The state will guarantee the participation of the consumer organizations in the study of the provisions that concern them. In order to enjoy
this right the organizations must be of a representative nature and observe internal democratic procedures.
Article 79. Every person has the right to enjoy a healthy environment. The law will guarantee the community's participation in the
decisions that may affect it.
It is the duty of the state to protect the diversity and integrity of the environment, to conserve areas of special ecological importance, and
to foster education for the achievement of these ends.
Article 80. The state will plan the handling and use of natural resources in order to guarantee their sustainable development, conservation
or replacement.
Additionally, it will have to prevent and control the factors of environmental deterioration, impose legal sanctions, and demand the repair
of any damage caused.
In the same way, it will cooperate with other nations in the protection of the ecosystems located in the border areas.
Article 81. The manufacture, importation, possession, and use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons are prohibited as is the
introduction into the national territory of nuclear and toxic wastes.
The state will regulate the importation and exportation of genetic resources and their use, in accordance with the national interest.
Article 82. It is the duty of the state to protect the integrity of public space and its assignment to common use, which has priority over the
individual interest.
Public entities will participate in the profits generated by their urban planning activities and will regulate the use of the soil and the urban
air space in order to protect the common interest.
CHAPTER 4
CONCERNING THE PROTECTION AND APPLICATION OF RIGHTS
Article 83. The activities of individuals and public authorities must conform to the postulates of good faith, which will he presumed in all
dealings that the former engage in with the latter.
Article 84. When a right or an activity has been regulated in a general way, the public authorities may not establish or demand permits,
licenses, or impose additional conditions for its exercise.
Article 85.The rights mentioned in Articles 11, 12,13, 14,15, 16,17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37 and 40 are
applicable immediately.
Article 86. Every person has the right to file a writ of protection before a judge, at any time or place, through a preferential and summary
proceeding, for himself/herself or by whomever acts in his/her name for the immediate protection of his/her fundamental constitutional
rights when that person fears the latter may be violated by the action or omission of any public authority.
The protection will consist of all order issued by a judge enjoining others to act or refrain from acting. The order, which must be
complied with immediately, may be challenged before a superior court judge, and in any case the latter may send it to the Constitutional
Court for possible revision.
This action will be available only when the affected party does not dispose of another means of judicial defense, except when it is used as
a temporary device to avoid irreversible harm. In no case can more than 10 days elapse between filing the writ of
protection and its resolution.
The law will establish the cases in which the writ of protection may be filed against private individuals entrusted with providing a public
service or whose conduct may affect seriously and directly the collective interest or in respect of whom the applicant may find
himself/herself in a state of subordination or vulnerability.
Article 87. Any person may appear before the legal authority to demand the application of a law or fulfillment of an administrative act. In
case of a successful action, the sentence will order the DELINQUENT authority to perform its mandated duty.
Article 88. The law will regulate popular actions for the protection of collective rights and interests related to the homeland, space, public
safety and health, administrative morality, the environment, free economic competition, and others of a similar nature.
It will also regulate the actions arising out of harm caused to a large number of individuals, without barring appropriate individual action.
In the some way, it will define cases of CIVIL LIABILITY for damage caused to collective rights and interests.
Article 89. In addition to what is mentioned in the previous articles, the law will determine the other resources, actions, and procedures
necessary so that the individual rights of groups or collectivities may be legally protected against deeds of commission or omission by the
public authorities.
Article 90. The state will answer materially for any type of damages that can be attributed to an illegal action, or caused by deeds of
commission or omission by the public authorities.
In the event that the state is ordered to compensate damage which may have been the consequence of the fraudulent or seriously criminal
behavior of one of its agents, the former will have to claim restitution from the latter.
Article 91. In the case of a manifest infraction of a constitutional precept to the disadvantage of any person, an order from a superior does
not absolve the executing agent from responsibility.
The military in the service are exempted from this provision. As far as they are concerned, responsibility will fall exclusively on the
superior officer who gives the order.
Article 92. Every person or legal entity may solicit from the competent authority the application of penal or disciplinary sanctions by
reason of the behavior of the public authorities.
Article 93. The treaties and international treaties ratified by the Congress, that recognize the human rights and that prohibit their limitation
in the states of emergency, emergency situation, prevail in the internal order.
The rights and duties consecrated in this Letter, will be interpreted in accordance with international treaties on human rights ratified by
Colombia.
The Colombian State can recognize the jurisdiction of the Penal Court the International in the terms anticipated in the adopted Statute of
Rome the 17 of July of 1998 by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries of the United Nations and, consequently, ratify this treaty in
accordance with the procedure established in this Constitution.
The admission of a treatment different in substantial matters on the part of the Statute from Rome with respect to the guarantees
contained in the Constitution will exclusively have effects within the scope of the matter regulated in him.
(Modified by Legislative Act 2/2001. 3º and 4º were added interjections.)
Article 94. The enunciation of the rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution and in international agreements in effect should not
be understood as a negation of others which, being inherent to the human being, are not expressly mentioned in them.
CHAPTER 5
CONCERNING DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS
Article 95. To be Colombian is an honor for every member of the national community of Colombia. Everyone has the duty to respect and
dignify this honor.
The exercise of liberties and rights recognized in this Constitution implies responsibilities. Every person has the duty to respect and obey
the Constitution and the laws.
The following are duties of each person and each citizen:
1. To respect others' rights and not abuse one's own.
2. To strive in accordance with the principle of social solidarity, to respond with humanitarian actions when faced with situations that
endanger the life or health of individuals.
3. To respect and support the legitimately constituted democratic authorities in their efforts to maintain national independence and integrity.
4. To defend and foster human rights as a basis of peaceful coexistence.
5. To participate in the country's political, civic, and community life.
6. To strive toward the achievement and maintenance of peace.
7. To cooperate for the sound operation of the administration of justice.
8. To protect the country's cultural and natural resources and watch over the conservation of a healthy environment.
9. To contribute to the financing of state expenditures and investments in accordance with the principles of justice and equity.
TITLE III
CONCERNING THE POPULATION AND THE TERRITORY
CHAPTER 1
CONCERNING NATIONALITY
They are national Colombians:
1. By birth:
a) The natural ones of Colombia, that with one of two conditions: that the father or the mother has been natural or national Colombians or
who, being children of foreigners, some of its parents will be domiciled in the Republic at the moment of the birth and;
b) The children of Colombian father or mother who will have been born in foreign earth and fire will domicile in Colombian territory or
will register in a consular office of the Republic.
2. By adoption:
a) The foreigners who ask for and obtain letter of naturalization, in agreement with the law, which will establish the cases in which the
Colombian nationality by adoption is lost;
b) The Latin Americans and of the Caribbean by birth domiciled in Colombia, that with authorization of the Government and in agreement
with the law and the principle of reciprocity, requests to be registered like Colombians before the municipality where they will settle
down, and;
c) The members of border the interior indigenous towns that share terr, with application of the principle of reciprocity according to
treaties public.
No Colombian by birth could be private of his nationality.
The quality of Colombian national is not lost by the fact to acquire another nationality.
The nationals by adoption will not be forced to resign to their nationality of origin or adoption.
Who have resigned to the Colombian nationality they will be able to recover it in accordance with the law.
(Article modified by Legislative Act 1/2002)
Article 97. Even when he/she has renounced citizenship status, the Colombian
who acts in opposition to the country's interests when Colombia is involved in a foreign war will be tried and sentenced as a traitor.
Colombian citizens by naturalization and aliens domiciled in Colombia cannot be obligated to take up arms against their country of origin;
neither may Colombians who have acquired citizenship abroad against the country of their new citizenship.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING CITIZENSHIP
Article 98. Citizenship is lost de facto when an individual has renounced it, and its exercise may be suspended by virtue of a legal decision
in the cases determined by law.
Those persons whose citizenship has been suspended may request its restoration.
Unless the law states otherwise, citizenship status will be exercised beginning at age 18.
Article 99. Being a citizen in good standing is a prior and indispensable condition for exercising one's right of suffrage, to be elected, and
to hold public office involving authority or jurisdiction.
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING ALIENS
Article 100. Aliens in Colombia will enjoy the same civil rights as Colombian citizens.
Notwithstanding, for reasons of public order, the law may impose special conditions on or nullify the exercise of specific civil rights by
aliens.
Similarly, aliens will enjoy, in the territory of the Republic, guarantees granted to citizens, except for the limitations established by the
Constitution or the law.
Political rights are reserved to citizens, but the law may grant to aliens resident in Colombia the fight to vote in elections and in popular
consultations at the municipal or district level.
CHAPTER 4
CONCERNING TERRITORY
Article 101. The borders of Colombia are those established in international treaties approved by the Congress, duly ratified by the
President of the Republic, mid those defined by arbitration awards in which Colombia takes part.
The borders identified in the form provided for by this Constitution may he modified only by treaties approved by the Congress and duly
ratified by the President of the Republic.
Besides the continental territory, the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia. Santa Catalina, and Malpelo are part of Colombia, in addition
to the islands, islets, keys, headlands, and sand banks that belong to it.
Also part of Colombia is the subsoil, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the
airspace, the segment of the geostationary orbit, the electromagnetic spectrum and the space in which it operates, in accordance with
international law or the laws of Colombia in the absence of international regulations.
Article 102. The territory, together with the public resources that are part of it, belong to the nation.
TITLE IV
CONCERNING DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL PARTIES
CHAPTER 1
CONCERNING THE FORMS OF DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION
Article 103. The following are the people's means of participating in the exercise of their sovereignty: the vote, the plebiscite, the
referendum, the popular consultation, the open town council meeting, the legislative initiative, and the recall of officials. The law will
regulate these matters. The state will contribute to the organization, promotion, and guidance of professional, civic, trade union,
community, youth and charitable or nongovernmental public-purpose associations, without prejudicing their authority so that they may
constitute democratic means of representation in the various functions of participation, agreement, control, and supervision of the public
activities that they undertake.
Article 104. The President of the Republic, with the approval of the ministers and the prior approval of the Senate of the Republic, may
consult the people on matters of great national importance. The people's decision will be binding. Such consultation may not be
concurrent with an election.
Article 105. Upon the fulfillment of the requirements and formalities prescribed by the general statute of the territorial organization and in
the cases determined by the latter, the governors or mayors, as the case may be, will be entitled to hold popular consultations to decide
issues failing under the jurisdiction of their respective department or municipality.
Article 106. Upon the fulfillment of the requirements that the law prescribes, the people of the territorial entities may present bills
concerning issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the respective public entity, which is obligated to implement them.
CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING PARTIES AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
Article 107.It is guaranteed to all the citizens the right to found, to organize and to develop to parties and political movements, and the
freedom to affiliate themselves with them or to retire. In no case it will be allowed the citizens to belong simultaneously to more of a
political party or movement with legal function and position of agent.
The political parties and movements will be organized democratically. For the taking of his decisions or the escogencia of his candidates
they will be able to celebrate popular or internal consultations that they agree or not with the elections to public corporations, in agreement
with the anticipated thing in his statutes.
In the case of the popular consultations to the norms on financing and publicity of campaigns and access to the mass media of the State
will be applied, that prevail for the ordinary elections.
Who participates in the consultations of a party or political movement she will not be able to register by another one in he himself electoral
process.
Also the right is guaranteed to the social organizations to pronounce itself and to participate in political events.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 108.The Electoral National Council will recognize legal function and position of agent the parties, political movements and
significant groups of citizens.
These will be able to validly obtain them with non inferior voting to the two percent (2%) of the votes emitted in the national territory in
elections of House of Representatives or Senate.
They will lose them if they do not obtain that percentage in the elections of the same Public Corporations.
The exceptional regime is excepted that statute in the law for the circumscriptions of minorities, in which it will be enough to have
obtained representation in the Congress.
The political parties and movements with recognized legal function and position of agent will be able to register candidates to elections
without additional requirement some. This inscription will have such to be guaranteed for effects by the respective legal representative of
the party or movement or by that he delegates. The social movements and significant groups of citizens also will be able to register
candidates. The law will determine the requirements of seriousness for the inscription of candidates.
The political statutes of the parties and movements will regulate the ascension to their internal disciplinary regime.
The members of the Public Corporations chosen by a same party or political or citizen movement will act in them like large stone bench in
the terms that the law indicates and in accordance with the decisions made democratically by these.
The internal statutes of the parties and political movements will determine the conscience subjects respect to which east regime will not be
applied and will be able to establish sanctions by the nonobservance of its directives on the part of the members of the large stone
benches, which will pay attention gradually until the expulsion, and will be able to include the loss of the right of vote of the congressman,
deputy, councilman or edile by the rest of the period for which it was chosen.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH 1. The political parties and movements with recognized Legal Function and position of agent at the moment
and representation in the Congress, will conserve such function and position of agent until the following elections of Congress that are
made after the promulgation of the present Legislative Act, of whose results will depend that they conserve it in agreement with the rules
arranged in the Constitution. For effects to participate in anyone of the elections that are made from the entrance in use of this
Reformation to the following elections of Congress, the political parties and movements with representation in the Congress they will be
able to be grouped whenever they fulfill the requirements of voting demanded in the Reformation present for the obtaining of the legal
functions and position of agent of the parties and political movements and obtain legal function and position of agent that it will replace to
the one of those who is grouped. The new grouping thus constituted will enjoy the benefits and will fulfill the obligations, consecrated in
the Constitution for the parties and political movements in electoral matter.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH 2. A plural number of Senators or Representatives to the Camera, whose sum total of votes in the last
elections of Congress has obtained more than the two percent (2%) of the valid votes emitted for the Seine do of the Republic in the
National Territory, will be able to ask for the recognition of the legal Function and position of agent of party or political movement. This
norm will prevail by three (3) months from its promulgation.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 109. The State will concur to the financing of the parties and political movements with legal function and position of agent, in
accordance with the law.
The campaigns that advance to the parties and movements with legal function and position of agent and the significant groups of citizens
that candidates postulate will be financed with state resources by means of the system of replacement by deposited votes.
The law will determine the percentage of voting necessary to have right to this financing. Also the amount of the expenses that the parties,
movements or candidates can make in the electoral campaigns, as well as the Maxima will be able to be limited quantity of the deprived
contributions, in agreement with the law.
The campaigns to choose President of the Republic will have access to a maximum of advertising spaces and institutional spaces of radio
and television paid for by the State, to those candidates of parties, movements and significant groups of citizens whose postulation fulfills
the seriousness requirements that, for the effect, determine the law.
For the elections that are celebrated from the use of the present legislative act, the violation of the maximum tops of financing of the
campaigns, properly verified, will be sanctioned with the loss of investiture or the position.
The law will regulate the other effects by the violation of this rule.
The parties, movements and candidates will have to publicly render accounts on the volume, origin and destiny of their income.
PARAGRAPH. The annual financing of the parties and political movements with Legal Function and position of agent will promote like
two minimum to point seven times the contributed one in 2003, maintaining its value in the time. The quantity of the financing of the
campaigns of the parties and political movements with legal function and position of agent will be at least three times the contributed one
in period 1999-2002 in constant weights of 2003. It includes the cost of the transport of the day of elections and the cost of the tax
exemptions of mail today financed. The internal popular consultations of the parties and movements that decide on this mechanism will
receive financing by means of the system of replacement by deposited votes, maintaining for it the value in constant weights effective at
the moment of approval of this Legislative Act.
TRANSITORY PARAGRAPH. The Congress will regulate these matters. As for the departmental and municipal elections, such regulation
will have to be ready to more taking three months before its accomplishment. If he will not do it, the National Government will dictate a
decree with law force before the closing of the corresponding inscriptions.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Article 110. Public employees are prohibited from making any contribution whatever to the parties, movements, or candidates or to induce
others to do so, with the exceptions established by law. Noncompliance with any of these prohibitions will be cause for dismissal from
office or loss of investiture.
Article 111. The political parties and movements with legal function and position of agent must right to use the mass media that make use
of the electromagnetic spectrum, in all time, according to the law. It will also settle down the cases and the form like the political parties,
movements and the candidates properly registered, will have access to these means.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
CHAPTER 3
CONCERNING THE STATUS AND GUARANTEES OF THE OPPOSITION
Article 112. The political parties and movements with legal function and position of agent that declares in opposition the Government, will
be able to exert the critical function freely forehead to this, and to raise and to develop political alternatives. For these effects, the
following rights will be guaranteed to them: the access to the information and the official documents, with the constitutional and legal
restrictions; the use of social mass media of the State or in which they make use of the electromagnetic spectrum in agreement with the
representation obtained in the immediately previous elections for Congress; the mass media retort such. The minority parties and
movements with legal function and position of agent will have right to participate in the directive tables of the bodies collegiate, according
to their representation in them. A statutory law will regulate the matter completely.
(Article modified by Legislative Act Number 1 of 2003)
Spain established its first permanent settlement at Santa Marta in 1525. Spain dominated
Colombia and most of South America until 25 July 1810 when Colombia declared its
independence. A war for independence ensued led, by Simon Bolivar and Francisco de
Paula Santander with victory achieved 7 August 1819. Simon Bolivar was declared its first
president and introduced a new constitution. As the Federation of Greater Colombia was
dissolved in 1830, the Department of Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a
new country, the Republic of New Granada. In 1863 the name of the Republic was changed
officially to "United States of Colombia," and in 1886 the country adopted its present name:
"Republic of Colombia." The military has seized power three times in Colombia's history: in
1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854; and from 1953 to 1957. Civilian
rule was restored within one year in the first two instances. Since declaring its
independence from Spain in 1810, Colombia has had eleven constitutions, the last of which
-- adopted in 1915 -- has undergone 11 reforms since its enactment. Human rights are
enumerated beginning with Article One and have been amended to conform with the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which Colombia is a signatory. The following are
those amendments specifically pertaining to human rights. For a full English translation of
the Colombia Constitution, click here.
Colombia and most of South America until 25 July 1810 when Colombia declared its
independence. A war for independence ensued led, by Simon Bolivar and Francisco de
Paula Santander with victory achieved 7 August 1819. Simon Bolivar was declared its first
president and introduced a new constitution. As the Federation of Greater Colombia was
dissolved in 1830, the Department of Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a
new country, the Republic of New Granada. In 1863 the name of the Republic was changed
officially to "United States of Colombia," and in 1886 the country adopted its present name:
"Republic of Colombia." The military has seized power three times in Colombia's history: in
1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854; and from 1953 to 1957. Civilian
rule was restored within one year in the first two instances. Since declaring its
independence from Spain in 1810, Colombia has had eleven constitutions, the last of which
-- adopted in 1915 -- has undergone 11 reforms since its enactment. Human rights are
enumerated beginning with Article One and have been amended to conform with the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which Colombia is a signatory. The following are
those amendments specifically pertaining to human rights. For a full English translation of
the Colombia Constitution, click here.