Judicial Review of Presidential Re-Election Amendments in Colombia

1 In the third wave of democratization, beginning with the fall of the Soviet empire, the roles of constitutional law and constitutional courts have assumed central importance in defining fledgling commitments to democracy. Of all the newly minted courts, the Constitutional Court of Colombia (Corte Constitucional de Colombia) has rendered opinions that are landmarks in global constitutionalism. Two of those decisions, Decision C-1040 of 2005 (Colom) and Decision C-141 of 2010 (Colom) define the struggle to protect fragile democracies from descending into the...