espanolDesde la promulgacion de la Sentencia C-1141 de 2000 de la Corte Constitucional, la responsabilidad ex constitutione se ha hecho parte del lenguaje recurrente en materia de proteccion al consumidor. Sin embargo, los alcances conceptual y practico de tal expresion no son del todo claros. Para dilucidarlos, he comenzado por estudiar que significa la responsabilidad ex lege, respecto de cuya comprension tambien hay enormes dificultades; con este fin, he analizado su relacion con la diada de responsabilidad contractual y extracontractual, y su relacion con la responsabilidad objetiva, llegando a la conclusion de que no existe una relacion necesaria entre ellas y la responsabilidad ex lege, y que esta, bien entendida, simplemente se refiere a la determinacion desde la ley de una obligacion especifica. Logrado lo anterior, he partido de la equivalencia semantica entre responsabilidad ex lege y responsabilidad ex constitutione para senalar que la diferencia es solo jerarquica, a lo que se auna que las soluciones practicas que la Corte pretendia derivar de la ultima ya eran asequibles en el ordenamiento juridico colombiano, por lo que el aporte de la Sentencia C-1141 de 2000 a la evolucion del derecho colombiano es de naturaleza diferente a la que se suele suponer. Finalmente, al examinar los argumentos de la Corte en la sentencia, he llegado a la conclusion de que su contribucion real es la apertura a la completa superacion de la bifurcacion del sistema de responsabilidad civil en Colombia. EnglishSince Constitutional Court’s decision C-1141/2000, liability ex constitutione has become part of the normal language on consumer protection. However, conceptual and practical effects of the expression are not completely clear. In order to elucidate them, I have begun by studying deeply what liability ex lege means, of which understanding has also enormous difficulties; to this purpose, I have analyzed its relation to the ex contractu, ex delicto liability dyad, and its relation to strict liability, concluding that there is not a necessary relation among them and the liability ex lege, and that this, well understood, only refers to the setting from the law of a specific obligation. Having attained the latter, I have started from the semantic equivalence between liability ex lege and liability ex constitutione, to point out that their difference is only hierarchical, besides, the practical solutions that the Court expected to derive from the latter were already within reach in the Colombian legal order, because of which the impact of C-1141/2000 decision is not of the importance usually assumed. Finally, analyzing the Court’s arguments in the decision, I have come to the conclusion that its real contribution is the opening to the complete overcoming of the division of the civil liability system in Colombia.