The Constitutional Court issued Sentencia C-332 de 2025 on 4 September 2025, upholding Law 2385/2024 as constitutional and annulling the phrase in Article 3 paragraph 4 that had excluded cabalgatas, corralejas, toros coleados, and cockfighting from the prohibition. Immediately following the ruling, Law 2385 remained operative with its transitional regime, but with an expanded list of covered practices. Bullfighting and cockfighting events continued to be organised under transitional allowances in traditional municipalities during 2025-2026, subject to restrictions on location, timing, and absence of public funding. The ruling is registered in the official Sisjur legal database under Alcaldía de Bogotá as Sentencia C-332 de 2025. No higher domestic court can overturn the ruling. The combined legal framework of Law 2385 and Sentencia C-332/2025 covers bullfights, rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas, tientas, corralejas, toros coleados, and cockfighting as public spectacles, with full prohibition scheduled from July 2027; some cockfighting provisions are reported in secondary sources as fully enforceable by 2028, though the exact statutory date for cockfighting should be confirmed against the authenticated text of C-332/2025.

Anticipated Effects

If implemented as written and enforced as interpreted by the Court, commercial bullfighting, corralejas, toros coleados, and cockfighting as legally authorised public spectacles would cease throughout Colombia from July 2027, removing the legal channel for using bulls, steers, and roosters in these entertainment systems.

If central and local authorities implement the ruling, bullrings currently used primarily for bullfighting would be reoriented to cultural, sports, or artistic uses within one year after the full prohibition’s entry into force, and supply chains for breeding and training bulls and fighting cocks for public spectacles would be reduced or redirected as the legal market for these animals closes.

Whether animals previously used in the prohibited spectacles are redirected to agricultural production or other channels is not established in available sources; the law explicitly preserves livestock industry practices that are not covered by the prohibition.

Significance Rationale

Assigned Reduces Exploitation (impact direction) because the ruling actively expands the scope of the prohibition by annulling the exception clause that had excluded corralejas, toros coleados, and cockfighting from Law 2385 as enacted. These practices were previously legally authorised under the law as passed; the Court’s ruling subjects them to the same prohibition framework from July 2027. This is substantively different from a ruling that merely confirms enforcement authority without changing what is prohibited — it directly extends the exploitation-reducing effect of Law 2385 to species and practices previously excluded.

Assigned Alters Legal Basis (impact type) because the primary mechanism is the annulment of the exception clause and the constitutional confirmation of the prohibition framework — changing what is legally permissible by removing the statutory exclusions for corralejas, toros coleados, and cockfighting. The expansion of scope is the direct consequence of this legal basis change.

Assigned High significance because the ruling extends the prohibition framework to cockfighting (roosters) and additional bovine spectacles (corralejas, toros coleados) that were explicitly excluded from Law 2385 as enacted, constituting a substantive expansion of scope across additional species and exploitation systems nationwide. The ruling is final in the Colombian constitutional hierarchy.

The scale change is structural within its scope: all covered animal spectacles in Colombia — including the practices added by this ruling — are scheduled for elimination by July 2027 under the combined framework of Law 2385 and Sentencia C-332/2025. The duration and persistence of the scale change is not established in available sources pending the prohibition’s operative date.