A critical review of the legal grounds for the annulment of the “Entre Cerros” Urban Wetland

Analysis of the Second Environmental Court’s ruling of July 3, 2025, Case No. R-459-2024

Abstract

The article analyzes judicial reasoning as a tool for reviewing the legality and rationality of environmental administrative acts, based on the Second Environmental Court’s ruling on the “Entre Cerros” Urban Wetland. From an interpretive perspective grounded in Manuel Atienza’s formal, material, and pragmatic conceptions of legal argumentation, it contrasts the “technical logos” of the urban wetland declaration with the “logic of the reasonable” applied by the majority opinion. The article argues that the Court exceeded the boundaries of legality review by assessing the expediency of the declaration and displacing the application of the legal rule through a balancing exercise built on public policy guidelines, such as access to housing. It concludes that the ruling conflates the conditions of discursive and procedural legitimacy with the requirements of technical validity of the administrative act. Finally, it highlights the dissenting opinion as a safeguard of the principle of legality, emphasizing the value of Joseph Raz’s exclusionary or second-order reasons in containing ad hoc discretion and preserving the legal certainty of the legal order.