%0 Journal Article %T EL JUICIO CONSTITUCIONAL DE PROPORCIONALIDAD DE LAS LEYES PENALES: £¿LA LEGITIMACI¨®N DEMOCR¨¢TICA COMO MEDIO PARA MITIGAR SU INHERENTE IRRACIONALIDAD? %A Fern¨¢ndez Cruz %A Jos¨¦ ¨¢ngel %J Revista de derecho (Coquimbo) %D 2010 %I Scientific Electronic Library Online %R 10.4067/S0718-97532010000100003 %X the constitutional judgment of proportionality represents the fundamental criteria for the fulfillment of the basic rights that may grant a higher constitutional protection to the principies and limitations to the ius puniendi. the constitutional court's purpose is to set what principies and criminal limitations may be incorporated to the provisions or norms of fundamental right and, as such, to configure a system of precedents in the constitutional control of the criminal laws. nevertheless, the inherent irrationality that any constitutionality test may contain and, thus, of proportionality too, can be mitigated through the incorporation of some regulations or reforms based on the democratic legitimation, especially, the discourse rationality. %K criminal proportionality %K constitutional court %K discourse rationality. %U http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0718-97532010000100003&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en