La falacia del Estado social en Colombia

Abstract

This document carries out a normative and jurisprudential analysis on the model of the Social State of Law and Social Rights introduced by the 1991 Constitution, to validate its development. The main goal is to contrast the normative design with the reality of Colombian society to consider whether the social purposes of the state are met or if, on the contrary, the Social State of Law is a legal discourse and not a reality. To achieve such goal, the emergence and evolution of the concept of Social State of Law and its application in Colombian constitutionalism are taken into account; The study of social rights is carried out in conceptual and quantitative terms with satisfaction/deficiency indicators to identify the effectiveness degree those rights that allow the progress or setbacks of the Social State of Law to be concluded. The contrast among constitutional norms, jurisprudential rules and empirical data on the effectiveness of social rights lead us to the conclusion that in 30 years of legitimacy of the Colombian Constitution 1991-2021, the Social Rule of Law in our country is a fallacy that needs to be transformed into reality by social actors to undertake the programmatic content of the constitution. To fulfill social needs, there are legalpolitical instruments such as the National Development Plan and the Multi-Year Budgets, which meet public policy to procure the improvement and quality of life of Colombians and show that the Social State of Law is not a simple constitutional formula.