Special legislative procedure "fast track" vs constitutional principle of deliberative democracy

Abstract

The special legislative procedure for peace "Fast Track" was contemplated in Legislative Act 1 of 2016, on the occasion of the peace negotiations between the national government headed by former President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón and the subversive group "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ”, In order to provide a more expeditious, secure and transitory way to pass laws and constitutional reforms necessary to legally implement said agreement.
This procedure, in practice reduced the number of debates required in congress for the approval of laws or reforms, going then from eight to three debates. His second claim was to temporarily eliminate the obligation to vote en bloc; It is then that the question arises about the contradiction that this procedure could generate with the “Principle of deliberative democracy", in the understanding that in Colombia since the 1980s this concept, this concept, has been defined and resignified by numerous influential political actors. It itself arose due to the crisis of classical constitutionalism that was supported by aggregative conceptions of democracy, while deliberative democracy brought with it an air of credibility by subjecting the laws to be passed to exhaustive political and constitutional control.