“I came prepared”said the minister of the Segpres, Giorgio Jackson, when in the meeting of the extended political committee -which convenes the heads of the official collectivities- he was consulted regarding the use of the “adequate” Decrees with Force of Law for the implementation of a new Magna Carta.
The window was opened by the comptroller general of the Republic, Jorge Bermúdez, who -last week in the Commission of Transitory Norms of the Constitutional Convention-, advanced the possibility of creating an exceptional tool that allows adapting the legal system to the regime stipulated in the proposed Constitution, in case it wins the Approval in the plebiscite on September 4.
“The dictation and empowerment of the President of the Republic might be explored (…) so that he dictates Decrees with the Force of Law that are adequate as a kind of new regulation that might perhaps help this period. This would help those regulations that affect the administration of the State to be issued in a very limited period and overcoming some of the difficulties of the law, ”said Bermúdez in his presentation.
The idea -which had the support of Jackson, regarding the implementation times of a new Magna Carta-, did not attract consensus within the ruling parties. The President of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde (PS), replied that “dictatorships legislate by decree” and the same was done by his counterpart in the Chamber, Raúl Soto (PPD). “I don’t like the institutional shortcuts that are typical of authoritarianism,” he said.
Thus, the issue was unavoidable during the meeting with the parties. According to those present, the head of the Segpres clarified from the outset that it is not the Executive’s intention to “govern by decree”, and that they are betting that the implementation of the new constitutional text be carried out in Congress. Nevertheless, The minister warned that certain legal adjustments cannot be allowed to take 10 or more years to implement.
In this framework, he stressed to the official collectivities that the adequatory decrees would only be used on specific issues and following the analysis of the ministry.
The reasons exposed by Jackson to the parties are similar to those that he pointed out in the Transitory Norms commission, where he affirmed that “We are not proposing that the Executive replace the legislative role in those fundamental things that require a new law.but that it has to present the projects in some term, which is determined by a Commission that can find the reasonable terms for this Constitution to be implementable”.
And he added: “But, at the same time, a counterweight in the sense that if it is not possible to legislate within a certain period -so that it does not become a dead letter- that Congress itself also has an incentive to reach agreements. It is important that there is an incentive to reach agreements in order to solve the problems and not perpetuate them and that we do not have that in 10 or 15 years later there is a norm that still does not have a corresponding legislation for its implementation”.
After the explanation of the head of the Segpres, from the PS and the PPD asked the government to prepare a document that delimits what aspects might be regulated through decrees in order to give a concrete reduction to parliamentarians. “It is different to adjust the law of public purchases through a decree than substantive aspects”, reply from Democratic Socialism.
Who supported the initiative this morning was the Conventional member of the Broad Front, Jaime Bassa who stated that “to the extent that it is a delegation and an authorization from the Constitution to the President that is delimited, exceptional, only for some matters in which there is already existing legislation and only to adapt the content of that legislation to what the law says new Constitution, I think it may be a reasonable alternative. I don’t see it as something extraordinary.”
At the end of the appointment in La Moneda, the president of the PC, Guillermo Teillier, played down the concern expressed by Elizalde and other officials of the ruling party. “I think that it is being misunderstood, I do not see that in the government there is that position of governing by decree. What is being seen is that at some point, the Convention, which is not over yet, forces the government to send bills to the government with deadlines,” he stated.
Meanwhile, his PPD counterpart, Natalia Piergentili, argued that both the Executive and the constituent body should bet on the Legislative Power being the one to enable -in as many aspects as possible- the new Magna Carta. “I am confident that the Segpres, together with the work of the Constitutional Convention, will establish a roadmap that allows Congress to legislate on the largest number of laws that correspond to the heart of the new Constitution,” she concluded.
The minister Camila Vallejo (Segegob) also addressed the matter. “Many times caricatures are created from statements that reach us as in the effect of the telephone, and the message can be distorted with respect to what was originally intended to be communicated,” he indicated.
Along these lines, he added that “we rescue the proposal made by the Comptroller in the sense that they are limited regulations on the basic law and administration of the State to give continuity to the services and to evaluate the Decrees by Force of Law that are different from the law decrees”.
Finally, the Secretary of State explained that “precisely so that, if the new Constitution is approved, we can go through a calm process, responsible within the deadlines and that allows the State to continue operating while the structural reforms are legislated to lower the standards constitutional on rights such as health and social security, all of these are going to require reforms that go through Congress yes or yes”.
