Euthanasia, constitutional state and democracy: validty of religios arguments in decisions of Colombian Constitutional Court, at the ligth of Habermas’ proposal on the role of religion in public affairs

Abstract

This product of a research turns around the question related to the position of Colombian Constitutional Court in relation to religious arguments to support and express its decisions in some controversial cases. In order to analyze such a problem, it has been proposed to tackle a systematic and critical interpretation of a concrete aspect of Jürgen Habermas’ philosophy, that is to say, his proposal about the role of religion in public affairs. The reflection in this first product focuses in the description of the proposed arguments analysis in the constitutional within the Constitutional Court, resulting in Sentence C-239, 1997, which decided on the demand against article 326, Decree 100, 1980- Criminal Code at that time -, referring to criminal type 'homicide for pity' (or euthanasia) at the light of the
proposed theoretical referent.