Top honour for Macquarie Senior Lecturer

Macquarie Law School Senior Lecturer, Carlos Bernal-Pulido, has been awarded a top honour by an Ecuadorian University for his work in Constitutional Theory in Latin America.

Dr Bernal-Pulido will receive the Honoris Causa Doctoral Medal from the CESS University of Guayaquil in Ecuador next month.

Dr Bernal-Pulido hails from Colombia and has been following the changes in the constitutional landscape of Latin America over his career.  Dr Bernal-Pulido has published three books on the subject in Spanish, and one of these has sold over 10,000 copies.

“From the beginning of the 90’s there have been relevant changes in Latin America in the constitutional area.  In almost every country there is a new constitution institutionalizing the principles of democracy and the rule of law“  Dr Bernal-Pulido said.

Dr Bernal-Pulido said he was surprised to receive the award, which he was nominated for after a Professor at CESS University became impressed by his extensive work in the area.

“I had not met this Professor yet and I was surprised when he wrote to tell me I had been nominated - because ordinarily these kinds of awards are granted to senior scholars, so normally the awardees are over 60 years old… but I am only 37,” Dr Bernal-Pulido said.

“My work on Constitutional Rights has been used and quoted by the European Court of Justice, the Constitutional Courts of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and I have written more than 40 articles on the topic in six different languages."

“I am pleased that my work has helped boost the profile of this area of constitutional theory. I am very grateful for the support that Macquarie offers to my research and for this recognition.”

Dr Bernal-Pulido is the Director of Research for Macquarie Law School and is continuing his work by writing a book in English on  the protection of Constitutional Rights from the perspective of the Comparative Law.