THE LAW OF LIBERATION: TOWARDS A JUSTICE EMBODIED IN HISTORY

Abstract

This paper sets out the foundations of the Law of Liberation, a legal perspective inspired by Liberation Theology and the thought of Ignacio Ellacuría. Both fields share a common purpose: to make justice a historical reality rather than an abstraction. Just as Liberation Theology recovered its original meaning, the Law of Liberation seeks to reorient the legal order toward its ethical root: human dignity.

Ellacuría grounds his philosophy in historical reality, understood as a dynamic construction transformed by human action. Recognizing this reality requires identifying the structures of injustice that produce exclusion and inequality, which in the legal field are expressed as structural crimes. In the face of this, the preferential option for the poor emerges as an essential ethical and legal principle for discerning the common good, historicizing human rights, and orienting justice from the standpoint of the victims.

From this perspective, law is conceived a liberating praxis at the service of a more just and compassionate society. The Law of Liberation thus transcends normative interpretation, rather it seeks to transform the structires that hinder the effective realization of justice and human dignity.