Abstract

VELASQUEZ POSADA, Héctor. Constitutionality of the legal competence of legal clinics. Rev. Fac. Derecho Cienc. Polit. - Univ. Pontif. Bolivar. [online]. 2015, vol.45, n.123, pp.513-546. ISSN 0120-3886.

Dogmatic-critic paper with the aim of examining the constitutionality of the regulation of legal clinic competences, as established by the article 30 of the Decreto 196 de 1971 and the Ley 583 de 2000, two core laws in the mentioned topic. Its target is to demonstrate that with the promulgation of the Constitución de 1991, the regulatory scheme contained in the said dispositions, becomes contradictory with the new constitution since it surpasses the concept of poor, utilized in those dispositions, by the one of people in state of vulnerability which deserve special protection. Imposing the legal clinics with a social burden which contradicts the principle of University Autonomy, as well as imposing the obligation to ease the access to justice to individuals without economic resources, function for which the Defensoría del Pueblo was created. Furthermore, it changes the principles from which the right of defense and the right to a due process are interpreted. New central concepts from which the function, that until 1991 the legal clinic students were performing during their practices, does not satisfy the constitutional parameters for the realization of the due process postulate anymore.

Keywords : Legal Clinics; right to equality; lawyer of the poor; access to justice; university autonomy.

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