The minister of General Secretariat of the Presidency (Segpres), Giorgio Jackson, exhibited this Thursday before the Commission of Temporary Norms of the Constitutional Convention which is meeting from Antofagasta, a region where the body in charge of drafting a new Magna Carta is on an official visit.
The Secretary of State exposed before the members of the commission government recommendations for transitional rules that will govern in the event that The new Constitution will be approved on September 4 and that it will allow a better transition between the old and the new Fundamental Charter.
Last Monday, the The Executive sent a 54-page document to the Convention with transitory norms as a work inputwhere they proposed, for example, a series of measures for the implementation of the new bodies created by the instance, such as the Chamber of the Regions, establishing that new quorums begin to govern from the publication of the new Constitution, the implementation of the new National Health System, among other topics.
This is how this Thursday Jackson explained in more detail the recommendations of the Executive before the group of conventional.
The head of the Segpres, in addition, resolved queries from the conventional Fuad Chahin (DC) and Constance Hube (UDI) regarding the Executive’s proposal to create a Implementation Commissionwhose objective would be to develop a “Roadmap” that allows identifying the proposals for legislation, regulatory adaptation and public policies that must be deployed in the years following the approval of the new Constitution by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers.
In this regard, the minister started by recalling that the document with its proposals was prepared “with less than 24 hours of deferral from the term of writing the draft, therefore, there are many aspects that, as evidenced, do not have a specific definition, for example: what would the composition be”.
He added that “regarding where the power lies, what we clearly see here is that in order to generate the adjustments, and as the comptroller said yesterday, there are some powers that might be delegated to the Executive that are more of an administrative nature and that I think it is convenient for the Executive to take charge and, therefore, the Executive must be required to assume this responsibility for the proper functioning of the State”.
More regarding Constitutional Convention
Jackson added on this point that “there are others that are more political in nature that require deliberation. In that deliberation We believe that the headquarters of Congress, where democratic deliberation takes place, is where the laws should be resolved.. The calendar is different, because the calendar -which is the function that would be assigned to establish a calendar to someone who in some way has to execute this process-, should rather be in the hands and responsibility of the Executive”.
The Secretary of State also explained 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 continued: “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 the National Congress itself should also have an incentive to reach agreements because we believe that it is important that there be 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 legislation appropriate for its implementation. That is why we believe that there has to be a crossing of responsibilities”.
For Jackson, the Executive must be given greater demands in this sense, “but also to the congressional headquarters: that if it is not approved within a period that you consider reasonable for certain matters, then the Executive will have to take charge of that void where, I imagine, any Executive will have to weigh the public and legislative debate on which point is closest to consensus, otherwise, the Executive also loses legitimacy”.
The Secretary of State added that “we believe that the fair balance between the equivalence of citizen participation, legislative debate, but also being able to put a closure at some point in the processes is important because otherwise it can remain a dead letter and, to the citizens, the only thing we cannot tell you is that due to a lack of agreements, the Constitution is simply a dead letter; that is like a principle that is behind what we establish”.
The head of Segpres finished his response by reinforcing the fact that as a government “We are firmly committed to contributing everything that is formally required in terms of technical, financial and administrative support. But, by the way, by the time this is plebisciteed -if it is approved- we will still is going to become one of the main priorities, if not the main priority, at least in the portfolio that I have to represent (…) Because it is up to us to generate in the machinery of the State, and in particular of the Executive Power, the power to make this At the same time, a balance between not being a dead letter and having enough graduality and smoothness in transit, continuity that allows changes to be carried out.
