The fundamental right to freedom of choice of profession or trade in Colombia and its imperative statutory regulation
This article seeks to justify the need to enact a statutory law that comprehensively, systematically, and structurally regulates the fundamental right to freedom of choice of profession or trade in Colombia. A qualitative, documentary, historical-descriptive, and deductive analysis was carried out based on current regulations, the jurisprudence of the High Courts, doctrinal studies on the fundamental right to freedom of choice of profession or trade in Colombia, the regulation, inspection, and supervision of the practice of professions, and the reservation of statutory law and its interrelation with all these elements. It was found that, as a result of various historical and political dynamics, there is regulatory dispersion in the regulation of the practice of professions or trades in Colombia, structural legal gaps in relation to their institutional framework and functions, as well as the existence of various models of inspection and oversight that in practice generate confusion and inefficiency. It was also found that it is necessary to comprehensively, systematically, and structurally clarify the landscape of regulation, inspection, and oversight of the practice of professions or trades in the country through the enactment of a statutory law. To this end, the minimum elements that such a law should contain are proposed, since although the roots of this fundamental right are medieval and nineteenth-century, its evolution is necessary to adapt it to new times; otherwise, the existing system will remain obsolete, and its ineffectiveness will lead to the search for ways to circumvent it.
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