Supporting efficient, effective and transparent justice

Context

The Colombian Constitutional Court has faced various challenges over the past decade. Tasked with processing a large number of cases, the court system became overloaded. Judgements must be made quickly, but at the same time must be clear and understandable. In addition, technical equipment is out of date. And it is often the case that decrees issued by the Constitutional Court are not, or only partially, complied with by the relevant bodies.

Objective

The Colombian Constitutional Court is a transparent, efficient, and modern guarantor of the Constitution and plays an important role in the country’s judicial system.

Approach

• The project is supporting better court management to speed up proceedings and make court rulings and administration more transparent. To reduce processing times at the Constitutional Court, the duration of each step and each phase of the various workflows was analysed. Based on the results of this analysis, the project developed ideas for speeding up processes.
• A multi-stage workshop series was conducted to help ensure greater order, clarity, and efficiency in the judgements of the Constitutional Court. The participants learned how to improve the style and structure of the written opinions of the Court.
• To better explain the Constitution and the role of the Constitutional Court to children, the project has created a specially designed website and is distributing a book published by the Constitutional Court.
• The project supports dialogue between the Constitutional Court and the judiciary of the lower courts, whose decisions on fundamental rights issues come before the Constitutional Court as the court of last instance. Together, they discuss solutions to issues that need to be addressed. This also promotes mutual understanding.

Last update: July 2023