Patricia Mansilla MartÃnez, a member of the Bolivian Parliament, challenged the constitutionality of several articles of the Criminal Code on the basis that they discriminated against women. The Court held that some of the challenged articles were unconstitutional and upheld others.
The plaintiff in this action was an elected councilor in the municipality of Tolata. She was forced to sign a letter of resignation under pressure from a group of intruders who had entered the session room of the municipal building. The plaintiff alleged that her rights relating to legal security in the exercise of a public function under Articles 46 and 144 of the constitution were violated and sought constitutional protection and the return to the office of municipal councilor of Tolata. The Constitutional Tribunal granted these requests.
The Constitutional Tribunal held that the conduct of the municipal authorities forcing a victim of gender violence to reconcile with her aggressor under the threat of taking her children to a shelter violates the right of women to live free from violence. The Tribunal held that this conduct constituted undue harassment.
The Court held that it was not empowered to impose measures that guaranteed the physical and psychological integrity of domestic violence victims when other tribunals and bodies established for that purpose were competent. However, plaintiffs have the right to make the requests from the competent courts to take necessary measures in order to enforce its orders, using persuasive or coercive means.
A public defender challenged the constitutionality of Article 337 of the Civil Code, which stated that in domestic disputes, a judge could take into consideration the education, custom and conduct of both spouses when dealing with cases of cruelty, dishonest behavior or grave injury. He argued that such a law violated the constitutional right of equality before the law. The Constitutional Tribunal agreed in part and disagreed in part, holding that such considerations could only be examined when dealing with cases of grave injury.
A male schoolteacher was accused of sexually abusing one of his female students, a third-grader, and was removed from his job pending the outcome of his trial. He filed a constitutional challenge to his removal, arguing that it violated his due process right to a presumption of innocence, as enumerated in Article 2 of the Peruvian Political Constitution. The court of first instance agreed with the teacher, ordering the school system to reinstate him. The school system argued that the Law of Teachers ("Ley de Profesorado") allows for termination of a teacher without a conviction.
