Maldonado, Daniel Bonilla; Crawford, Colin --- "Introduction" [2018] ELECD 141; in Crawford, Colin; Bonilla Maldonado, Daniel (eds), "Constitutionalism in the Americas" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 1

Book Title: Constitutionalism in the Americas

Editor(s): Crawford, Colin; Bonilla Maldonado, Daniel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781788113328

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Maldonado, Daniel Bonilla; Crawford, Colin

Number of pages: 26

Abstract/Description:

Latin American constitutional law has undergone a profound transformation in the last twenty-five years. On the one hand, a significant number of countries in Latin America reformed or issued new constitutions in order to consolidate or expand their liberal democracies. The constitutional transformations in Brazil (1988), Colombia (1991), Paraguay (1992), Peru (1993), Argentina (1995), Ecuador (1998) and Chile (2005) had, among other objectives, the aim of re-legitimizing their political systems, establishing a new balance between the branches of the government, expanding their bills of rights or modernizing their political and legal institutions. On the other hand, the new constitutions of Venezuela (1999), Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) aimed to move away from the liberal model that had historically been the norm of the majority of the States in the region.