* Holds a Ph.D. in Constitutional and Administrative Law.
Modern constitutionalism was born with an unwavering promise: to subject political power to the rule of the Constitution and the law. However, when democratic guarantees collapse and institutional checks and balances are deliberately dismantled, a pathological phenomenon emerges: the Unconstitutional State of Lawlessness (Estado Inconstitucional de No Derecho). In contexts of deep structural crisis, such as the one Bolivia is currently undergoing, this concept ceases to be a theoretical abstraction and becomes a stark reality. It represents the systemic failure of the constituent pact, where the total absence of constitutional institutionalism and the severe erosion of the Rule of Law transform the Constitution into a mere rhetorical facade that covers up and legitimizes arbitrariness.
The transition toward this collapse does not happen overnight; rather, it is the result of a progressive wear and tear of the republican institutional foundations.
In Bolivia, the 2009 Political Constitution of the State—designed with a vast catalog of rights, duties, principles, and guarantees, has been gradually emptied of its substantive force, yielding to a structure where de facto power subjugates normative authority and consolidates the country’s institutional erosion.
This crisis has led to a marked departure from the Supreme Law and has established a system of "parallel legality." Under this framework, the law is relentless against ordinary citizens or political dissidents but supremely elastic and permissive when facing abuses of power and corruption. In this discretionary environment, the popular will is shaped or ignored through interpretive sleights of hand, as was clearly demonstrated by the flagrant disregard for the binding constitutional referendum of February 21, 2016.
Compounding this breakdown are successive constitutional counter-reforms that act, in practice, as informal modifications to the Constitution, rendering its own text inapplicable through arbitrary judicial rulings of clear dictatorial intent.
A paradigmatic case is Plurinational Constitutional Ruling (Sentencia Constitucional Plurinacional) No. 0084/2017, through which Article 168 of the Supreme Law was set aside to declare indefinite presidential re-election a supposed human right. This joined other counter-reforms enacted by the Plurinational Constitutional Court that set aside the Supreme Law without any authority derived from it. This amoral conduct generated a conflict between the Constituent Power and the constituted power. Another early example is Plurinational Constitutional Declaration No. 003 of 2013, which rendered the first transitory provision of the Constitution inapplicable, allowing Juan Evo Morales Ayma to run for re-election and hold the Presidency of the Republic for a third term, an unconstitutional act that shattered the democratic system.
These counter-reforms, a phenomenon examined as part of an unpublished doctoral dissertation defended at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in 2024, are further aggravated by a countless number of contradictory judicial precedents across all areas of law. Taken together, this institutional degradation creates absolute legal uncertainty and leaves thousands of citizens defenseless.
The most acute symptom of this deterioration is the capture of the Judicial Branch by partisan political interests and corporate factions linked to the so-called social movements.
The Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP), originally conceived as the supreme guardian of the Constitution, has transformed into a super-power. Through tailored rulings, the judicial system has undermined its own legitimacy, reaching the unheard-of extreme of validating the unconstitutional self-extension of terms (autoprórroga) for its own magistrates outside of the popular vote. Consequently, the separation of powers and its system of checks and balances have become a mere institutional mirage today. The judicial apparatus is openly weaponized, and within this repressive mechanism, the Public Prosecutor's Office plays a central operational role in the judicialization of politics. Concurrently, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly has been systematically bypassed, neutralized, or paralyzed through judicial rulings, as evidenced by the blocking of the process for the latest judicial elections, completely nullifying its capacity to legislate and oversee the executive branch.
This entire state machinery remains immobilized due to the deep fracture of the governance system. It is thus demonstrated that public authorities no longer answer to constitutional supremacy but rather to the dictates of warring warlords (caudillos), thereby worsening the political and economic crisis in the face of an evident void of legal certainty. This normative charade produces a suffocating helplessness among citizens, who realize that turning to the courts does not mean seeking justice but rather subjecting themselves to a wheel of extortion and political loyalties. In this manner, the Rule of Law is replaced by a "State of Fact" (Estado de Hecho), disguised in legitimacy but devoid of democratic merit.
The structural crisis in Bolivia conclusively proves that the core problem lies not in partially reforming the constitutional text but in dismantling the de facto structure that subverts it. Overcoming the Unconstitutional State of Lawlessness demands a deep and urgent institutional renewal. This reconstruction begins, inescapably, with restoring judicial independence through genuine merit-based mechanisms that permanently eradicate political meddling, as well as restoring an authentic separation of powers. Without impartial courts and effective limits on the exercise of power, Bolivia will remain trapped in a spiral of democratic degradation. Saving institutionalism means restoring the binding and supreme nature of the Constitution before extreme authoritarianism, both political and judicial, finishes consuming the foundations of the Republic entirely.
