Free development of personality

 T-560/16. 

Summary

In this opportunity, the plaintiff is a citizen deprived of liberty in a prison facility. He interposes “acción de tutela” in order to obtain the protection of the constitutional judge of his right to visits, and the right to human dignity and no discrimination, presumptively violated by the Director of the Penitentiary, by means of not allowing the entrance to the facilities of two afro-descendant women that have hair extensions, under the argument that it exists a norm in the internal regulation that forbids the entry to the complex of any type of hair extension.  The Court spread out its analysis by studying: the “agencia oficiosa” and active legitimation to promote the action, the fundamental rights of the people who are deprived of liberty and their relation to the State, the right to visits on the penitentiaries and the regulation of this rights by the jail norms, and finally the right to preserve the intern integrity and that of his environment. The Court decided that the establishment could have adopted a series of other measures orientated to maintain the safety of the facilities, without the need to infringe the rights of the intern, therefore, it granted the suit in his favour.