Ciao!

So are there then two levels of appeals? that is to say, are there regular district-level courts, and appeals court, and then a supreme court; or are there only district (or whatever they're called) and appeals courts?

I'm also curious as to whether, since the regular supreme court may not decide constitutional issues, the constitutional court can decide issues outside those constitutional. I can envision issues arising under American law for example that would give rise to both constitutional and, say, contractual or tort issues.

I have misgivings about the functionality of such a division b/w constitutional and "other".

I should first note that I do not have expertise in con law — either in Bolivia or the US. But I think I can adequately answer this question.

First, unlike the US, Bolivia doesn't use the common law system, but rather the code law system. This means that courts are strictly limited to determine whether a defendant has, indeed, broken the law. They're not empowered to rule on issues of abstract rights, the interpretation of laws, etc.

In the US (and other similar systems), the constitutions are quite vague, and therefore open to interpretation. There's also a centuries-old tradition (from English common law) to use the precedents from legal cases as basis for law. That is, the decisions of courts are, themselves, laws — essentially, courts are empowered to make laws.

In code law systems (most of the world) the constitutions are much more detailed, and annexed w/ lengthy codes (e.g. Workers Code, Students Code, Electoral Code, etc) that stand almost equal to constitutional law. Thus, courts don't rule on questions such as whether a certain case touches on first amendment issues. They only rule on whether the defendant did, in fact, violate the laws. In short, courts cannot make laws, since lawmaking is very strictly limited to legislatures.

Second, Bolivia's constitutional tribunal (which I think is common to similar courts in other code law countries) can only hear constitutional issues. It can only determine whether or not a recently passed law (voted on by the legislature, signed by the executive) has violated some prescriptions of the standing Political Constitution of the State (CPE) or the appropriate legal codes.

In the case of the recent tribunal decision regarding district apportionment, the court ruled that the special law that called for early elections, by deliberately not using the 2001 census for seat apportionment, violated both the constitution and the Electoral Code.

The Constitutional Tribunal's powers are outlined in Chapter III of the Bolivian constitution. It's comprised of five magistrates, elected by parliament by two-thirds vote, for ten year terms. The body's strictly limited to only decide the constitutionality of acts of parliament or the executive (not the courts), to make decisions in questions of competency between public institutions (they're listed), to oversee the rights of habeas corpus & habeas data, to advise elected officials on the constitutionality of potential decisions, and the constitutionality of agreements w/ foreign powers. There is no appeal for decisions made by the tribunal.