La obsolescencia de los derechos

Abstract

It does not seem that we can speak appropriately about the obsolescence of our constitutional catalog of rights, which has been and continues to be basically valid for the needs nowadays. However, there is a tendency to demand from fundamental rights what they can hardly give if they are still considered not as mere human rights but as constitutional rights, with what this entails. This trend is seen, at least, in three areas: the immediate and direct extension of rights to private relations, the alleged direct efficacy of social rights and the coexistence of international human rights tribunals whose decisions are intended to be imposed independently of terms in which rights are regulated by domestic law, including in the Constitutions. An expansive vision of rights in these areas leads to compromising other aspects of constitutionalism that have always been inseparable from rights: the division of power, the limits of the jurisdictional function and, ultimately, democratic legitimacy.