Colombia

• The Constitution of 1991, the highest law, together with the human-rights treaties it treats as part of the 'constitutional bloc'
• Codes and statutes, such as the Civil Code, which Colombia took over from Chile's Andrés Bello code
• Decisions of the Constitutional Court, which are very influential
• Decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Council of State

• The Constitutional Court, which reviews laws and decides on tutela cases
• The Supreme Court of Justice, the top court for ordinary civil, criminal and labour cases
• The Council of State, the top court for administrative cases
• Tribunals and local courts

A five-year law degree, then a professional licence (tarjeta profesional) issued by the judicial authorities.

• Any person can file a tutela with any judge, without a lawyer, to protect a fundamental right, and the judge must decide quickly.
• The Constitutional Court's tutela decisions have shaped areas like health care and education in practice.
• International human-rights treaties are treated as having constitutional weight.
• Colombia's Civil Code came from Chile, which shows how one Latin American code spread to many countries.

Chile, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Peru

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Colombia as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria.

• Constitutional Court of Colombia
• Council of State of Colombia

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.