Interview with Carlos Alberto Almanza Agámez
Law Professional graduated from the Universidad de Cartagena (Colombia).
Specialist in Administrative Law (Universidad Libre, Colombia); Specialist in Political-Economic Studies (Universidad del Norte); Master's Studies in Law - Research Emphasis (Universidad del Norte).
He currently works as a University Lecturer and Dean of the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas at the Corporación Universitaria Rafael Núñez - Cartagena, Colombia.
What motivated you to study Law?
In the academic offering of university education, Law stands out as a life project for personal and professional growth that allows you to plan actions in the public and private fields (and in my case also in the academic field), for the defense of a just order, of a society where justice, equality, and constitutional values prevail. It is no coincidence that the Law Professional is considered an agent of Justice and the defense of citizens' guarantees.
That idea that Law allows you to lead processes of political-democratic, social, and legal culture for the benefit and defense of our fellow human beings and the State (from an integrationist perspective) ended up being a great motivation for having chosen this career.
What satisfactions has this career given you?
In about fifteen years of professional life, I have had satisfying experiences both in the private sector and in the public sector and in private practice. But without a doubt, the University academic experience of training Law Professionals has been of great satisfaction, not only because of the high human component and commitment it involves toward those who have been my students, but also because of the social impact it generates, in terms of growth in local, regional, and national human development.
This work of training professionals connected with their environment, with high human and social sensitivity, with solid legal and interdisciplinary training, is a commitment to the growth of their personal, family, and local environments; a commitment to the development of the city, the Department, and the Nation reflected in its citizens; a commitment to promoting Justice, development, and the defense of the constitutional order from the different professional roles that each of them pursues.
And what about discontent?
The reality of a judicial system, an administration of justice, that has not lived up to citizens' needs, to aspirations for social justice, for prompt and timely resolution of conflicts, becomes a factor that often generates dissatisfaction. Lawyers are the ones on the front line who suffer from and reveal a jurisdictional apparatus that is inoperative in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, a slow and delayed justice that generates citizen discontent and distrust.
In that, many of us as actors have (in a global sense) responsibility, and on that point, I have tried to see it as a challenge, a task of training professionals who can improve the provision of the public service of administration of justice, in the overriding interest of guaranteeing a Just state. The task has also been to lead from academia, linked to civil society and to territorial entities (State), a dynamic that promotes processes of social development for the benefit mainly of vulnerable populations, of sustainable communities, of citizen empowerment toward a responsible and participatory political and legal culture: of educating citizens inside and outside the university cloister.
What do you think is the most important thing to succeed in Law?
Let's take for granted constant discipline and study, permanent updating, responsibility, as a common basis for any Law Professional.
But to highlight qualities necessary for successful professional performance: Leadership, Character and Proactivity!!! The latter reflected in a culture of Social Innovation, strategic thinking and a great sense of human, social and political responsibility.
New graduates must be able to competently take on and adapt to the scientific and technological advances in each of their disciplinary areas, aware of the role they play as professionals in the social context within which each one must act, open to change and to the transformation of knowledge: Guarantee of successful performance of the Law Career.
As an educator and legal professional, what advice could you give to a person who is evaluating this degree for their future?
Law is a career that involves a social, political, business and justice-strengthening responsibility, which requires people committed to those ends. The first thing is to consciously and responsibly evaluate the vocation and interest of the applicant (the family, for obvious reasons, plays a fundamental role here).
The vocational dialogue with law professionals in their circle, or with law students in higher grades, could generate future perspectives with which the applicant assesses whether they feel identified and/or motivated, and thus ensure on their part a commitment to their studies and subsequent professional practice. This, without restricting or directing their capacity for innovation and performance based on their own interests.
I have always defended the idea of Law as a Science, but also an art, passion, discipline,: This demands professionals committed to exalting the legal profession, contributing to development and social progress and to combating, having as their only weapons the Law and their communicative and argumentative abilities, every form of injustice that fractures the social group and ultimately, being that beacon of light that guides and illuminates society for the sake of freedom, justice, equality and order. If the applicant is committed to this: Welcome!!
Is there anything you would like to add?
In Colombia, next June 22, 2015 a new commemoration of Lawyer's Day will take place. Now, and always, it is imperative to remember the importance of Law Professionals in the consolidation of a free nation, with strong ideals, still not fully achieved, of justice, equality and social coexistence, but also the responsibility that falls on them as agents for the promotion and defense of citizen rights and guarantees, for the strengthening of democracy and citizen participation.
The Law Professional, Lawyer, shares together with other careers the unfortunate fate of being a kind of pariah caste that society always judges according to the behavior of its morally worst members, or those with little training and legal expertise. Perception reinforced amid a context of violence, and low political culture. One reality is that, with Lawyers -Law Professionals- being the main actors of the Justice System in Colombia, the career bears the burden of the low perceived honesty indicators shown by the Judicial Branch.
A poor perception of the honesty of Justice in Colombia also translates into little citizen trust in the Colombian Justice System. According to the Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia, there is a moderate (downward) trust of citizens in the jurisdictional apparatus of the state. This low level of trust is aggravated by the constant and highly publicized scandals to which the high courts have lately accustomed us, and the repeated and in my judgment abusive strikes promoted by employees of the judicial branch, ignoring the nature of essential public service and the right of all Citizens to access Justice.
Faced with this problem, our response from academia is to strengthen the comprehensive training of professionals – Lawyers – who restore dignity to justice and public institutions, and who, through their actions, can foster a greater political culture in the environment of their practice, local, regional and national, increase citizen confidence in the Institutions, especially in the Justice System, always for the sake of a just and equitable society.
The changes that our global society faces day by day already demand a new role, a new Law professional who is up to the rigorous and fast-paced modern times – our time – and it will never be too much to reiterate it, with a high level of human education, strengthening those values that honor the career. That is what we are committed to from academia: to educate, not to convince; so that future Law Professionals carry as their banner those principles of responsibility, quality, permanent self-education and leadership in both ethical and professional matters, and those values of freedom and justice, which serve as a pillar and fundamental basis for our States today.
Carlos Alberto Almanza Agámez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/carlos_almanzaa
