Although the complaint observes the formal structure of a judgment on the substitution of the Constitution, identifying one major premise (model of constitutional rigidity), a minor premise (constraint on the authority of Congress to amend the Constitution), and a conclusion (substituting the inherent element of constitutional rigidity and, correlatively, affecting the validity of the democratic principle), it does not explain why establishing that amending the ban on reelection can only be done by means of a referendum convened by a people’s initiative or a Constitutional Convention is tantamount to substituting the Constitution and therefore, the resulting constitution would involve a jurisdictional error that would lead to the nonapplicability of the provision being charged as contained in Article 9 of Legislative Action 2 of 2015. Compounding the above, in the wording of the minor premise, the complainants are actually proposing material control over the constitutional amendment, based on comparing Article 197 above and Articles 113 and 114 of the Political Constitution, without explaining precisely and clearly what the substitution of the semi-rigid model, which was supposedly enshrined by the 1991 Constitution, would consist of and why that model would not be subject to amendment. Under these conditions, the Court could not undertake an examination of the matter or rule on its merits. 57 72. The Commission notes that six judges submitted clarifications on the vote in said case. One judge stated that: From my standpoint, this constitutional amendment does not breach the Constitution, because it is not undermining any of its key pillars as asserted by the complainant, but rather it is consolidating constitutional democracy, preventing constitutional amendments being processed in Congress from attempting to eliminate the principles that strengthen the so-called constitutional democracy. Because of that, I believe that, although on this occasion, the complaint did not meet the minimum requirements to undertake a study of constitutionality, this does not mean that, if said requirements had been met, it would have been possible for the complaint to prosper (…) In my opinion, this type of practice [attempting to extend the term of office of rulers beyond the terms literally set in the Constitution] jeopardizes constitutional democracy, understood as a democracy that guarantees the rights of minorities and the democratic rules of the game on the basis of safeguards such as deliberation and rotation in office. The regulations of international law also have that same mandate, and Colombia adheres to them as in, for example, the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS, which provides in its Article 3 that: “Essential elements of representative democracy include respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, access to and the exercise of power in accordance with the rule of law, the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based on secret balloting and universal suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people.” 58 73. As for the Constitutional Court of Peru, in 2018 it ruled to dismiss an appeal on constitutional grounds against Law 30305, which amended Article 194 of the Constitution and provided for the banning of the immediate reelection of mayors, with observations that are relevant to the present case. The Court stressed that: As can be appreciated, there is no constitutional or treaty-based parameter that might lead us to ignore that the right to elect and the right to be elected involve limits, as well as allowing us to infer that there is a supposed right to be reelected. (…) Furthermore, it must be noted that the ban on the reelection of mayors is associated with the principle of rotation in office. In any case, it must be corroborated whether the scope of what is currently provided in our constitutional system is favorable to the succession of various elected officials for each municipal term of office. (…) In that regard, it must be stressed that the Peruvian state identifies with the republican form of government, with a decentralized unitary state, and the separation of the branches of government, among other guiding principles that were referred to herein. These principles, of course, are not being undermined by the amendment to the third paragraph of Article 194 of our Constitution, which the constitutional law amendment that is being challenged has introduced. 57 58 Judgment of the Constitutional Court of Colombia C -230-2016 of May 11, 2016. Judgment of the Constitutional Court of Colombia C -230-2016 of May 11, 2016. Explanation of vote by Jorge Iván Palacio Palacio.