Sebastián Lalinde is a lawyer trained at the EAFIT University (Colombia). He holds a Master in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom) as well as a Master in Public Law and a Postgraduate Certificate in Public Management from the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). In the past, he has worked as a researcher at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia) in Colombia and currently works at the Colombian Constitutional Court. His research focuses on access to justice, judicial independence, criminal policy, police law and sociology of the police, subjects on which he has published and co-published various books and articles. Specialist of social protest and its criminalization in Colombia, he is the author of open-access book Elogio a la bulla. Protesta y democracia en Colombia (2019), which presents a general portrait of how social protest is discouraged through a variety of mechanisms which includes criminalization. In addition to  numerous articles and columns in major Colombian newspapers, his other academic publications include: Sistema de justicia territorial para la paz (with Carolina Villadiego, 2017); Lecciones sobre cómo no hacer una reforma constitucional (with Rodrigo Uprimny, 2016); Requisas, ¿a discreción? Una tensión entre seguridad e intimidad (2015); Hacia un diseño que garantice en grado adecuado la independencia de la rama judicial y la mejor fórmula de selección de magistrados de altas cortes (2014); and Ante la justicia: necesidades jurídicas y acceso a la justicia en Colombia (with various other authors, 2014).