Judgement No T-254/93

The Colombian Constitutional Court is asked to review the previous judgment of the Superior Court of Cauca.

The applicant presented claims before the Court against different public administrations, and private enterprises, arguing that private companies poured products contaminated with industrial operations in the Palo river waters to the detriment of the rights to life and work of the applicants and of the community living in Puerto Tejada.

The Court defined the two ways of protection of rights under the Constitution, protecting individuals and their fundamental rights, or protecting groups and collective rights.

According to the Court, the existence of a specific violation of a fundamental right or a real threat is not demonstrated enough in the present case, because they could not establish a connection between facts and results. This connection is one of the requirements of the individual protection of fundamental rights.

The popular actions aim to defend collective rights, including the right to the healthy environment. In the present case, the right allegedly infringed is not a fundamental right, but collective and therefore cannot be protected as an individual right.

For these reasons the Court did not reversed the previous judgment.