The fundamental rights of access to justice and effective judicial protection today have transcended the normative and doctrinal limits in which they had traditionally been framed, becoming authentic pillars of development from the perspective of the capability of the institutions that provide services in the field of the administration of justice to respond to the challenges derived from this conceptual transformation, materialized in the notion of legal needs. Within this context, the figure of the public defender plays a decisive role, since it constitutes the channel through which it is possible for the population that does not have the possibility of covering the costs of a trusted lawyer to access the judicial system and obtain the attention of their legal needs. However, it is possible to wonder if the institutional framework of the public defender's service is adequate in this new context or if it is necessary to rethink some of its traditional bases. In that order of ideas, the objective of this study is none other than to analyze the institutional structure of the Colombian public defender service in order to determine if it is institutionally designed to provide an adequate response to the challenges derived from the so-called unsatisfied legal needs and to propose a comprehensive improvement proposal. For this aim, this study starts from a paradigmatic study case: that of administrative law, considering that legal needs related to the State are those that represent the highest index of dissatisfaction.
publication date
April 12, 2021 5:17 PM
Research
keywords
Access to the administration of justice
Administrative law
Analysis of the institutional structure of the Colombian defense service
Constitutional analysis of the public defender's office
Effective Judicial Protection
Guardianship Public defender service
Proposal to improve the practice of public defender
