Chile kicked off its second attempt to change Pinochet’s Constitution

In the premises of the former National Congress in Santiago, the 24 experts appointed by the Parliament began their work to draft the preliminary draft of the new constitution.

Sputnik was present at the site and spoke with the protagonists of this process.

“It seems to me that it was an installation session that leaves all the hallmarks the Commission hopes to transmit. It was a very expeditious session, where all sectors made a gesture to reach a unanimous agreement allowing the Commission to get to work promptly,” expert Alexis Cortes told Sputnik.

The day began at 10:00 am on March 6 with the arrival of the 24 experts at the headquarters of the former National Congress in Santiago, who were received by the presidents of the Senate, Alvaro Elizalde, and of the Chamber, Vlado Mirosevic.

After midday, the investiture ceremony of the Panel of Experts took place.

The session was provisionally preceded by Hernán Larraín, from the right-wing party Unión Demócrata Independiente, as he was the oldest expert of the panel, which was the first polemic of this new process.

The appointment of Larraín, who previously served as senator and Minister of Justice in the second administration of Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), was resisted by civil society and human rights organizations for his closeness to German pedophile Paul Schäfer.

Schäfer was sentenced to 20 years for sexual abuse of minors; seven years in prison for aggravated homicide; three years for violation of the law on arms control, and three years and a day for torture.

While inside the Congress the ceremony of installation of the new body was taking place, outside the premises a group of around 100 people demonstrated against the new process, accusing a “political kitchen [negotiation between political parties behind the citizenry’s back]” and that it was “unpresentable the presence of Larraín in the place”.

“It is important to have an active, questioning, and critical society. And these manifestations seem to me to be coherent with that. It is to be expected; everything seems to indicate that this will be the case, that the new constitution will also respect the constitutional guarantees of the right of expression to demonstrate,” said the expert.

Larraín was relieved of his provisional position by the pro-government Verónica Undurraga, who was unanimously elected president of the Panel of Experts. She will be accompanied by the lawyer and expert appointed by the opposition, Sebastián Soto, as vice president.

UNDURRAGA’S FIRST WORDS

At a press point on the steps of the former National Congress, Undurraga spoke to the media. The body’s president explained that the panel seeks a spirit of unity.

“Of unity in diversity. We know that our society is very diverse in which different ways of understanding what is best for Chile coexist,” said Undurraga.

She acknowledged that within the commission, there are “many points in common, but we are going to have differences. That’s good; that’s how democracy is built,” she added.

Undurraga explained that experts from all sectors have reviewed the Constituent Convention proposal that was rejected in the September 4 plebiscite.

“Both people from the right, from the center, from the left, always say ‘in such aspect, in such subject the Constitutional Convention was right, in this other it was wrong’. This is the same with the proposal submitted by President Michelle Bachelet,” she said.

THE CHALLENGES OF THE PANEL OF EXPERTS

Alexis Cortés explained to Sputnik that one of the main challenges the panel will face is to prevent the debate from being “very cryptic, very technical, that it does not translate into a regulation that the population perceives can be useful to improve their material living conditions”.

“So far the only big controversy there has been is the compatibility between the democratic rule of law and the social state. And I hope it is not a knot because it seems to me that the constitutional bases precisely raise it”, he added.

The constitutional bases are a 12-point agreement reached by the political parties last October 11, 2022, which will delimit the wording of the new constitutional proposal.

“It is important to be very clear that the main role will not be in the expert commission but in those with a popular mandate to draft the new constitution based on the preliminary draft we present. And our role is simply to facilitate this discussion, to facilitate the deliberation of those who will be elected for this task”, he concluded.

THE ROLE OF THE PANEL OF EXPERTS AND THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON ADMISSIBILITY

Unlike the previous constituent process, which emanated from the National Congress to provide an institutional solution to the serious social crisis that the country was experiencing after the massive mobilizations of October 2019, this time, it will not start with a blank sheet of paper.

The political parties agreed on a series of constitutional bases for this new process.

One of them is to consider Chile as a democratic republic whose sovereignty resides in the “unitary and decentralized” State.

In addition, the country is recognized as a “social and democratic state of rights” with a division of powers: executive, judicial, and legislative.

The constitutional bases eliminate the concept of plurinationality from the debate by stating that it “recognizes the indigenous peoples that inhabit its territory as part of the Chilean nation, which is one and indivisible”.

In order to comply with the constitutional bases agreed upon by the political parties, the Parliament created the Technical Committee of Admissibility, composed of 12 members.

It will have the function of reviewing that the approved norms do not contradict the 12 constitutional bases contemplated in the Agreement for Chile, the pact that started this second constituent process.

The Panel of Experts will have three months to draft a proposed constitutional draft. On March 8, the different sub-commissions will begin to work to elaborate the proposal:

• Subcommission on Political System, Constitutional Reform and Form of State.
• Subcommission on Jurisdictional Function and Autonomous Bodies.
• Subcommission on Principles, Civil and Political Rights.
• Subcommission on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights.

The Panel of Experts will submit the preliminary draft to the Constitutional Council, a body elected by the citizens, but without the presence of independents.

The election will occur on May 7, and 50 constitutional councilors will be elected.

One month later, the new body will be installed and will have until November 7 to draft a new document that will be plebiscited on December 17.

With information from Sputnik