El presidente de Colombia y su elusión constitucional en época de crisis

The use and abuse of the state of siege in Colombia was a constant during the 19th and 20th centuries. Consequently, the 1991 Constituent Assembly was careful when regulating martial law, establishing a demanding limit and control system. This paper aims to show that in times of crisis, the Colombian president prefers to use legal powers such as health emergency and military assistance to limit human rights instead of resorting to constitutional powers such as martial law. To the various forms of constitutional avoidance proposed by Manuel Quinche Ramírez in his work “Constitutional Avoidance: A Policy of Evasion of Constitutional Control in Colombia”, we would have to add the president using administrative actions in times of crisis to tackle situations that require regulations with the power of law because the controls for martial law decrees are more severe and effective than those for administrative actions, thus giving rise to a presidential rule that avoids the ideal control of constitutionality.