When judges declare Constitution as unconstitutional: Presidential reelection in Latin-American according to the last decisions of the Constitutional Courts

Abstract

This article contains a critical review of the decisions that some Latin-American Supreme or Constitutional Courts have made allowing presidential reelection despite the explicit ban in the Constitution. According to the authors, the inapplicability of constitutional provisions, which have been declared as “unconstitutional” by Courts, derives from academic misunderstanding and wrong interpretations on inadequate categories. Due to this fact, Courts have assumed an improper and hypertrophied function beyond the nature and objectives of constitutional justice.