The Wandering Constitutionalist

By: Luis Beltrán Guerra G. - 13/03/2023

We would not know whether to qualify John Landless, King of England, to whom the first Magna Carta of 1215 is attributed, with the purpose of putting an end to abuses in the use of land, whose provisions led to "rebellions" and guidelines fairer. It is estimated as a precedent that legitimizes the written regimes with respect to rights and duties, for the sake of a peaceful coexistence.

But what if it does not seem exaggerated to affirm is that since then, the world has not experienced a stable constituent process, rather, on the contrary, "provisionality" has been the rule. We have walked like “coffee pickers”, that is, from one place to another. For linguistics, a species is a person or animal that walks a lot, but also quickly or easily. Crispulo Pérez, an old professor of constitutional law, complained that every school year he had to update the guides for his classes, since as soon as the academic term ended, a different constitution from the one he explained had already been promulgated. Hence "The walker constituent", used in this essay.

It is not ignored that the social process is dynamic and that this contributes to the adequacy of the rules established to regulate it, but in the constituent processes more than that guideline has deprived "personalism and the interests at stake". In lessons it is observed that the stability of constitutions would pass through a legal text, in which conflicting passions and reasons find agreements for the sake of well-being. However, reality reveals anarchy in the sources to generate them, giving rise to "bourgeois and popular constitutions" and the appreciation that the primacy of the former is historical. The most recent democracies and the result of the “class struggle”. The prototype of the revolutions does not stop accompanying.

Likewise, the profane and the sacred, genuine human manifestations, have fed, normative typologies, in principle, apparently, more stable, because they come from the churches, regulating moral behavior and the punitive typology with regard to sinful behaviors. The justice of God, the Almighty.

The stability of the constitutions does not imply “the old age” of the established regime, which must be rather dynamic, since it is stimulated by popular participation. Citizens, in the context, as it is read, are called to democratize the primary regulatory regime and, also, the secondary. A healthy equivalence between what was written and what was executed would be logical. Democracy must not be conceived as a threat to the political order and to the preservation of "constitutional stability", since the latter gives seriousness to the former. What is negative for both is that "the magna cartas" become the mass that each ruler beats at will for the bread that favors his interests and that of those who accompany him as morons. Harmful “elitist constitutions” are the ones that should be ignored, They constitute an elite obstacle to popular participation. The rational thing, for the sake of associative permanence, is that it be channeled and disciplined through complex reform procedures, judicial control of legislation when it is inconsistent with the fundamental text, and popular intervention in fundamental political decisions. So, too, is heard.

The distinction between "democracy" and "mobocracy" also constitutes an effort in the face of the dichotomy, even more so, defining the latter as that of a powerful mob or mass that governs, whose consequences favor those who lead the conglomerate. "Despite the sorrows", as it is often expressed" the question persists: Why do some constitutions last, while others fail? It is argued that the average life expectancy is 19 years, to the surprise of many "its maximum duration", in the opinion of the then still young Thomas Jefferson, President of the USA from 1801 to 1809. However, the Magna Carta of his country It's already been 220 years. An accurate conclusion would seem to be that "the longer a constitution lives, the better the constitutional health of the nation." Let's assume it.

In the context of the guidelines cited, it is unfortunate that we have to refer to the situation faced by Chile, one of the Latin American countries with a serious constitutional regime, despite having had ten constitutions. The tendency of the constituent towards a "unitary state" has begun to tremble, as Mario Marcel, the current Minister of Finance, has written, in the opinion of the journalist Rocío Montes, "the superstar of the government of Gabriel Boric." Rocío headlines in El País (Spain) what Marcel said “The political dynamics have become tense in Chile, and the arguments are not enough”. And the President of the Republic himself, when referring to the blow received by the deputies who "threw down" the tax reform proposal, attributes it to "the right." "Rejection",

Chileans have wandered in recent decades between the grammatical forms "I approve and I reject" and today at the hands of a government of young people, strictly speaking, the result of the overturning of a people in the streets cheering flags that had to be heard. Sebastián Pinera, a businessman with solid assets, a lover of presidential re-election, held his second magistracy at the time, after 4 years of constitutional disqualification. And the people rose up against him, and in a virulent way, before which he ended up offering a new “social contract”, a proposal that made Chileans remember the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose inventiveness reassured them and led them to elect a government In principle, more socialist than the ones he had had. That is the one who today leads the second homeland of the Venezuelan Andrés Bello.

Gabriel Boric and his boys put to the test in a first process, the constitutional one, in the midst of the locutions previously noted of "approval and rejection" regarding a new Magna Carta, a kind of "exception of inadmissibility", which was not surpassed. The draft constitution drawn up by a multidisciplinary commission at the request of Pinera was rejected electorally. We do not know if Boric will have expressed on that occasion and to himself the same thing as hours ago with the rejection of the tax reform: "the right again."

In Venezuela, where we come from, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved with great fanfare. The legislation derived from it "super abundant". Today they wants to replace it. Enlightened and serious people with documentation regarding a constituent process.

"The wandering constitutionalist at the shot," as they say over there in the South.

Comments welcome.

@LuisBGuerra

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».