Legitimidad de la justicia administrativa colombiana. Una mirada desde la percepción de su diseño institucional

This work presents the results of a research that aimed to determine to what extent elements that are part of the organizational rules of administrative justice influence its legitimacy, in order to guarantee its independence in the Colombian case. Based on the results of this inquiry, the study proposes measures to improve the administrative justice system in Colombia, seeking to contribute to increasing its legitimacy. For this purpose, based on a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the institutional design of the Colombian administrative justice, described in the first part, an empirical study was carried out using the interview technique, by means of a structured questionnaire of sixteen questions derived from a global query: Do the constitutional and legal rules that establish and guarantee the independence of administrative justice in Colombia promote its effective functioning? The questionnaire was presented to seventeen key actors of the Colombian administrative justice system, and its results are described in the second part of the text.Additionally, in order to rely on additional elements of judgment for the identification of proposals to improve the system under investigation, the study includes a description of the French justice model, since this model has been a constant reference for its counterpart institutions in Colombia. Finally, other experiences are reviewed, with a special focus on research papers and reports from specialized institutions that have addressed this issue in different regions; these secondary sources of information are used to complement proactively the findings of the field work.