The paradigm of Law in Colombia: The constitutionalization of Criminal Law

Abstract

The text proposes an analysis of the categories of paradigms of law that Ferrajoli proposes in his works, to understand historically how the right has developed and what are the implications of changes over time in the way legal norms are studied and applied. Accordingly, this article briefly explains each of the paradigms proposed by Ferrajoli, starting from the jurisprudential paradigm, later the legalistic paradigm and finally the constitutional paradigm, which, in turn, is divided into a constitutional paradigm that guarantees and a principalized constitutional paradigm. Likewise, once each of the paradigms is exposed, the text intends to analyze Colombia, with the 1991 Constitution, to which paradigm it claims in its study and application of the law, argumentatively recog-nizing its relationship with the principialist paradigm. To conclude, we present some of the arguments that make it possible to identify the relationship between the principialist paradigm and the criminal law. Some of these arguments are: the preponderant role of the constitutional judge within the framework of action of the supervisory judge, the linking of values, fundamental rights and principles as a framework for the understanding and application of legal-penal norms, and criteria of relevance of constitutional norms to penal rules. This is in order to conclude with the consistency of criminal law with the principialist constitutional paradigm.