Lawyer Juan Felipe Parra is tired of his friends looking at their cell phones when he meets them for lunch. He believes that people of his generation – he is 27 years old – feel the constant need to stay busy in order to meet the standards expected of them as dedicated employees. You have to take courses, compete with your classmates and be the best. And as if that wasn’t enough, everything has gotten worse with the Covid pandemic and the increase in remote working. WhatsApp messages from bosses invade your free time at any time. For this reason, Parra is “obsessed” with keeping his professional and personal life separate. And there have been some successes: among other things, the Colombian Constitutional Court recognizes digital shutdown as a human right.
Parra achieved his first success in labor law in 2020. Parra took his first steps as an assistant professor at the University of Los Andes, in an environment of abrupt adjustments to virtual classes and stressed teachers. The new modalities of working from home and the increasingly blurring boundaries with private life became increasingly important on the media agenda. That’s why he told his students one day that a 2008 law was unconstitutional because it excluded telecommuters from rights like overtime pay. “If you want, I invite you on vacation to meet on Zoom and file a lawsuit,” he told them. Two students joined and together with them he achieved his first victory.
“The pandemic has shaped us all. Anyone who says no is a liar. We all change. “It made me realize that a lot of things are wrong,” the lawyer said during an interview at the university where he works. During his imprisonment, he read philosophers such as Poland’s Zygmunt Bauman and Korea’s Byung-Chul Han, who led him to question the work ethic and ideals of happiness and success. They were very theoretical approaches, more typical of the philosophy student who wanted to be a philosophy student in high school and ended up not making it. But for him, both disciplines can go hand in hand. “Philosophy adds flavor to law,” he says.
The return to face-to-face teaching brought the second success. The idea for a new lawsuit arose in a class where Parra referenced a recently passed law that extended paternity leave and allowed some of the weeks set aside for mothers to be split between the couple. “A man raises his hand and asks me what happens when a couple consists of two men or two women,” the lawyer remembers. After thinking about it together, they concluded that the law had said nothing about it and that it was a legislative omission. Although no one joined the lawsuit initiative this time, Parra wrote the lawsuit while on vacation and submitted it to the Constitutional Court. In November 2022, the court decided in favor again.
“I think there’s something left of the little boy who started studying law.” [hace 10 años] and that he said that the law could be just. I am already aware that the law is political [con intereses en conflicto] and that often falls short. But I have a privilege in a country where the majority of people do not have access to higher education. I learned law and have the tools to take action. And I owe it to society, I have to help someone,” emphasizes the professor. When asked, he denied that there was a component of recognition and prestige.
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In January of this year, Parra filed the lawsuit to guarantee employees the right to digital disconnection outside of working hours. Together with two of his students, he argued that a related 2022 law was unconstitutional because of a section that excluded senior executives of companies and public institutions. The intention was to use this group as a “pretext” for the Constitutional Court to decide on the digital shutdown more broadly. The lawyer hoped a new definition would extend the right to categories of workers not covered by the law, such as contractors.
The result exceeded expectations. In late August, the court not only declared that the section was unconstitutional, but also found that separation from the labor market “is a human right that arises from new technologies.” For Parra it is a complete success because it implies that all people have the right to rest and leisure. Likewise, the lawyer points out that the impact is not just limited to the legal aspect: the media impact of the decisions of the Constitutional Court makes it possible to put issues on the country’s agenda and promote cultural change. “Advertising is important. This allows people to internalize their rights,” he says.
The lawyer and professor at the Universidad de los Andes, on September 5th. Santiago Mesa
María Lucía Torres, director of the Public Actions Group (GAP) of the Universidad del Rosario, points out by telephone that the decision to switch off digitally is also relevant based on the statements of the Constitutional Court. “It is not an old, static court anchored in the classics of law. “It adapts to the situation, reacts to social dynamics and reaffirms its role in society,” he emphasizes. The expert emphasizes that Parra’s achievement is not an isolated case and that public actions by citizens are fundamental to ensure the court’s “great achievements” throughout its history – environmental, LGBTI, disability rights.
“Our job as an academy is to tell the court that we need it to investigate something, even if it wants to tell us we’re wrong,” says Torres, who was one of the teachers who taught Parra how Claims of unconstitutionality were formulated when he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Rosario. As he explains, legal clinics across Colombia have been crucial in training lawyers who view law as a “tool of change.” “You can practice law however you want. But we must not forget its social function, its ability to influence major changes in society,” emphasizes the teacher.
political bet
Parra emphasizes that the demand for digital shutdown is part of his “political bet”. For him, it is important to see this in the context of a country where more and more international companies are arriving with the aim of offering outsourced services and benefiting from low local labor costs. “Colombia has experienced a boom in call centers [centros de atención al cliente]. Formal work grows and expands. But there are attempts to ignore or silence these things. “Oh no, separation from work.” “That applies in the European Union, not here, this is Colombia.” And no. Yes, that can also be implemented here.”
The problem is that it is not easy for companies – especially when there are few labor inspectorates – to comply with these regulations and for citizens to internalize them. Parra is aware that he himself has difficulty putting into practice everything he defends, despite the emphasis he places on his verbal and gestural responses throughout the interview. He states that he has stress problems and is studying medicine. He also admits that he runs from one side of Bogotá to the other, pointing out that he has to fulfill obligations as a doctoral student, a litigator in a law firm and a professor at two universities.
“My philosophy is what I say. In practice I don’t use it. I have an epistemic crisis because I think about some things and do others,” says Parra. “How do you get out of capitalism? It’s impossible, I don’t know.
Domestic workers living in the house
Further proceedings are underway against Juan Felipe Parra. Together with Professor Natalia Ramírez, she denounced the unconstitutionality of a 2021 law that provides for a gradual reduction in the maximum working day to 42 hours per week. The public complaint argues that the regulation is discriminatory because it does not take into account live-in domestic workers, who have a specific maximum working day on which the general limits do not apply.
The Supreme Court approved the lawsuit a few weeks ago. “The court will have to argue. If you want to keep the special maximum day as it is, you have to fall back on arguments from the last century. If it is compatible with recent case law, such as: B. Inability to work, you must reduce [los topes]’ the lawyer commented.
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