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The paper explores the political role of the Supreme Court of Colombia during the government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, particularly from 1953 to 1956. It deals with the relationship between the government of General Rojas and the Supreme Court during the abovementioned period, and the ways in which the military regime tried to affect the independence of the court at different times. The constitutional judicial review of decrees and constitutional reforms during the Rojas administration reveals the strategic behavior of the court, and the interdependencies between law and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpretation of the Constitution has lead to the development of a series of studies devoted to it. It has concerned about the notion, object, characteristics, specificity of constitutional interpretation and the role of constitutional judge. This paper treats this issue, and focuses in the role of constitutional interpretation directives, collecting as much of the doctrine developed, and then criticizing them. Traditional interpretation directives are described; this last ones are opposed to the new criteria that have been developed by certain sectors of the legal doctrine, which goes so far as to propose some directives already contained in other ones or that are not relevant in practice, as is intended to demonstrate in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]