Rights of informal recyclers

 Rights of informal recyclers

On this opportunity, a group of recyclers of the “basurero de Navarro”, in the city of Cali, interposed “acciones de tutela” against multiple municipal authorities, to request the protection of their fundamental right to a dignified life in connection with the right to work, supposedly violated by the closure of the dump where they had been recycling for over 30 years as their fundamental economic activity.

The Court analyzed the duties of the authorities related to the exercise of the right to equality of marginalized groups, the public policies as an expression of the Social State under the rule of Law, the special condition of the group of recyclers of Navarro as a sidelined group, the violation of the right to economic freedom and freedom of enterprise. In consequence, this Tribunal decided to adopt a series of measurements to undertake the precarious conditions of the recyclers due to the breach generated by the administration of Cali and the disproportional impact generated to them by the legal rules regarding final dispositions of waste.