For the second time in just over a year, Chile is attempting to replace its current Constitution, established in 1980 by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). And for the second time, the Chileans could well reject the draft text, for reasons totally opposite to the first. Tuesday, November 7, the Constitutional Council – elected on May 7 and composed of fifty members – will submit its proposal for a new fundamental law to President Gabriel Boric (left).
This text “is a fundamental tool to get the country out of stagnation, insecurity and political and social instability”, welcomed Beatriz Hevia, the president of the Constitutional Council, from the Republican Party (far right). The latter, with the support of the right, was able to impose his vision of the country, liberal and conservative, on the text, the antithesis of the first project which was submitted to the popular vote on September 4, 2022 – and rejected by 62%.
Over the last five months, the Constitutional Council has worked to amend a text which had already been worded between March and June of this year by a commission of experts appointed by Congress. These themselves included the major principles established in October 2022 by the parties present in Parliament, such as respect for patriotic emblems or fiscal responsibility. This very supervised process, supported by a “technical committee”, will conclude with a referendum with compulsory voting on December 17.
Possible questioning of the right to abortion
The final Council text clearly takes up the concept of “Social state of law” included in the “pre-draft” of the committee of experts, but it was emptied of its meaning, according to the left and the center left, minorities within the Constitutional Council, who believe that different Articles contradictory to this principle were introduced, such as the possibility of choosing between the private or public system in the field of health, education and pensions.
In this sense, the text ultimately extends the Constitution inherited from the dictatorship by enshrining the principle of the “subsidiary State” – the State only intervenes secondarily, after the private sector –, a concept accused of having frozen social inequalities. “This new text is more focused on individual freedoms than on rights, and in this sense it resembles the 1980 Constitution. The big difference is that it was written in a democracy”observes Sergio Toro, political scientist at the Mayor University of Santiago.
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