Fundamental rights and constitutional control

Abstract

This paper refers to the subject of constitutional control of public agencies in the Chilean constitutional and democratic state, from the point of view of the relationship between democratic state and the rule of law. Within this framework, the paper begins with a description of the basic features of the whole system of constitutional control in Chilean law. Then, more specifically, it reviews judicial constitutional control that takes place through the Recurso de Protección, an action aimed at the protection of people’s fundamental rights. In this context, the paper stresses the role played by fundamental rights in Chilean legal mechanisms of constitutional control, which sometimes go beyond these rights’ natural purposes and denaturalize their legal meaning.