“We conclude the year with a focus on Human Rights” with this expression, Professor Clara Inés Tapias Padilla, director of the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS, summarizes a year of impactful work and achievements by the department, part of the Escuela de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas UIS.
“2024 allowed us to bring more legal services to the community in need,” said Professor Tapias Padilla. She highlighted that while the demand for legal assistance evolves daily, the clinic has addressed these needs, not only in traditional areas of law such as labor, public, civil, criminal, and family law but also by incorporating a differential approach through its transversal legal assistance lines.
The transversal legal assistance lines at the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS include:
- Gender Line: assistance for women and the LGBTQI+ community
- Ethnic Focus Line
- Strategic Litigation (protection of collective rights)
- Disability Assistance Line
- Senior Citizen Line
- Migrant Assistance Line
- Animal Welfare Line
Professor Tapias Padilla explained, “These transversal lines of legal assistance mean seeing the beneficiaries holistically, offering legal services that not only provide advice and support—perhaps for a debt or family-related issues—but also address the unique challenges they face, whether related to gender-based violence, migration status, or being part of the LGBTQI+ community.”
A Year of Leadership in Differential Approach
Focusing on more than just individual cases has been a defining feature of the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS, According to its director, “It’s about developing a legal strategy with a differential approach, also thinking about communities that need legal support. This includes the environment and animals, which are also rights holders in specific areas of Bucaramanga and its metropolitan region, including rural sectors. It requires using the law to truly transform social realities affecting communities. This broader approach has heightened our students’ sensitivity, encouraging them to go beyond individual cases and adopt a collective rights perspective.”
Strategic litigation through the Clínica Jurídica Carlos Gaviria Díaz, is advancing long-term actions, including pedagogical, legal, and support strategies for vulnerable groups. Additionally, in 2024, conciliation methods became a cornerstone at the Centro de Conciliación UIS, helping beneficiaries resolve conflicts amicably and consensually. “This is part of UIS’s commitment to social extension, aiming to address complex social realities through the application of law,” added Professor Tapias Padilla.
The Mobile Unit of the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS expanded legal services through monthly outreach efforts in different regional sectors. “These legal brigades bring our students, advisors, and administrative staff to historically neglected communities, such as incarcerated individuals, who face numerous legal challenges, both personal and family-related,” explained the director.
For example, legal support has been extended to the Women’s Medium-Security Prison in Bucaramanga, allowing the clinic to assess the complex issues faced by this population and provide counseling, accompaniment, and rights education. Leveraging Technology for Inclusion, the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS has also utilized information technology to provide legal services, including virtual consultations and conciliations. “This flexibility ensures we meet the needs of the community, overcoming barriers that hinder peaceful and equitable access to rights enshrined in our Constitution,” said Professor Tapias Padilla.
In 2024, attention to the hearing impaired population allowed the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS to be at the forefront of care for the vulnerable population. “We have a professional and a Colombian Sign Language, LSC, teacher, who provide direct support to the community, who in order to provide this important service on behalf of our students, teachers and administrative staff, have managed to provide training in said language, to be more inclusive and sensitize us as human beings in the provision of the service, by additionally allowing deaf people to have access to conciliations regarding their situation, whether economic, family, likewise blind people, people with any disability, can enter our Legal Office and have comprehensive care with a differential approach in order to protect and materialize their Rights,” added Professor Tapias Padilla.
Likewise, regarding care for migrants, the director of the agency indicated, “we have a line that has been maturing in the provision of services to the population that is in a mobility with so many well-known difficulties and Bucaramanga, being very close to a border, is absolutely porous and that leads us to the fact that effectively the Venezuelan population, basically is the one that has suffered this situation and is 99.9% served, they are the most sensitive and the most vulnerable, this has implied that the Escuela de Derecho y Ciencia Política sign special agreements, for example, with Legal Action and with other strategic allies that help us to align efforts in order to provide a better service.”
The balance for this year that is ending is absolutely positive for the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS, in terms of both attention to the most needy population, as well as training future law professionals, of which Professor Clara Inés Tapias stressed “it has been worth it because beyond being a subject in the programa de Derecho, it is the social impact that the work of ninth and tenth semester students has in front of the community, by providing services that are certified under technical quality standards and that is also a guarantee so that people who come to seek the services of the Consultorio Jurídicio know and understand that they will obtain a free exercise of a legal service, where there is care, rigor, traceability and our students have a high social commitment to do the best from that application of the law. We strive to do the best we can and every day to enhance and capitalize on the experience that has been gained in the Clinic, with its students and teachers, all the leadership that the Escuela has had for 30 years, which has allowed it to position itself and continue developing an application of the Law in a particular way, in terms of Human Rights, almost 4,000 people have benefited and that speaks highly of that social commitment, of that solidarity extension that the Universidad Industrial de Santander has.
It should be noted that as the end-of-year recess of the judicial branch coincides with that of the administrative, teaching and student staff of the Universidad, attention to the public is suspended, however, procedures and some processes in the Prosecutor’s Office, Municipal Mixed Courts, Police Stations and Inspections continue, about which he explains “for this purpose, logistics have been decanted annually to guarantee the support that is needed, our students know that within the framework of their legal exercise, technically there are no vacations, because the processes of a guardianship follow their course, if there is to be challenged, it is necessary to do the same and guarantee the procedure, then we have already contemplated it, and of course within that framework of accompaniment, control and supervision, we will do what is necessary to guarantee our students that eventual support in the face of what may happen, we are ready to verify it”.
Finally, it should be noted that the Consultorio Jurídico y Centro de Conciliación UIS will resume operations in the second half of January 2025, offering services from the delivery area after the induction week for final-year students, starting on February 3, with full responsibility for the processes and procedures that are underway.
