Colombian Constitution of 1886
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| Colombian Constitution of 1886 | |
 Page one of the original copy of the Constitution
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| Ratified | August 4, 1886 |
| Location | |
| Authors | Delegates of the Consejo Nacional (National Council) |
| Signers | Two delegates per state (18 total), one delegate member of the Conservative party and one delegate from the Liberal Party with moderate tendencies. Liberal radicals were excluded. |
| Purpose | National constitution to replace the Rionegro Constitution |
The Colombian Constitution of 1886 was the constitution of 1886 that created the Republic of Colombia proceeding the United States of Colombia. The coalition of moderate Liberals and Conservatives that ended the liberal hegemony and placed Rafael Nuñez in power, repealed the Constitution of Rionegro with the constitution of 1886. From then on, the country was called officially Republic of Colombia.
Contents |
[edit] Constituent Assembly
The Constituent Assembly was conformed by 18 delegates, two from each of the nine states.
Rafael Núñez announced a national Regeneration program and changed the country from a decentralized federal system to a centralized system with a strong central presidency. The presidential period changed from two to six years. The president of the Republic was elected by the Congress. The president of the state was appointed governor who from that moment on was appointed by the president of the Republic. The governor would choose the mayors of his department, except the mayor of Bogotá who was chosen by the president himself. Thus the president in turn had the monopoly of the executive at all levels.
In addition, the re-election of the president in immediate periods was authorized.
The chamber, the departmental assemblies and the municipal counsils were chosen by popular vote. The Senate was chosen by the departmental assemblies. The suffrage for elections in the national scope was limited the greater men of 21 than they knew to read and to write. The restriction of knowing how to read and to write did not apply in the regional elections.
The figure of the vice-president was reinstated and which was initially occupied by Eliseo Payán.
The catholic religion became the official religion. In 1887 president Núñez settled down a concordat with the Vatican who gave to the Catholic church the powers him and privileges who was lost in the previous constitution.
This continuous method of implementing constitutional changes based on the partisan wind of the moment, without having to be the result of the agreements of the different national forces was one of the causes of bipartisan polarization and violence. The population followed the patterns of conflict of the parties and began to identify themselves more with the party concept than with the nation concept. The radical liberal ones never gave up to the loss of the power and in three occasions, from 1885 to 1895, they tried to gain it by force. It took 44 years (up to 1930) for the liberal party to regain power. The Constitution of 1886 remained effective by more than one hundred years guiding the mandate of twenty-three presidents of the Republic of Colombia until the year 1991.
[edit] Separation of Panama 1903
In the signed Hay-Herra'n treaty of January 22 of 1903, Colombia would rent in life form an earth strip to the United States for the construction of a canal in the Department of Panama. Under this United States agreement would pay Colombia $10 million dollars and after nine years an annuity of $250,000 dollars, treatment that was rejected by the Colombian congress whom considered these disadvantageous for the country, nonsingle by the money that would go away to receive but so that to leave a strip in life form to a foreign country a loss of the national sovereignty was considered.
On November 3, 1903 Panama separated from Colombia with support from the United States. On November 6 United States recognized the sovereignty of Panama and on November 11, the United States informed Colombia they would oppose Colombian troops trying to recover Panama. The Thousand Days War had left Colombia too weak to impede the separation. On November 18 United States signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla agreement with Panama for the construction of the Panama Canal.
[edit] The Reform of 1905
In December 1904, few months after being elected president, General Rafael Reyes, displeased with the congress because of the opposition and slowness to approve the reforms he wanted to impose, closed it. He summoned, at the beginning of 1905, a National Constituent Assembly conformed by three representatives of each department (provinces) chosen by the departmental administrators.
The Assembly suppressed the vice-presidency, two of the designaturas and the Council of State. It also defined that the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice would be for life, recognized the right of representation of minorities and the possibility to reform the Constitution by means of the National Assembly[1].
The National Assembly demonstrated its support to the government with dictatorial character when it established a presidential period of 10 years only for General Reyes (from January 1 of 1905 to January 31 of 1914) with the possibility to appoint a successor. In case the president were another person the period would be for four years[1] However General Reyes quit in 1909.
[edit] The Reform of 1910
Because of the unexpected retirement to exile of General Rafael Reyes on June 13, 1909, the congress chose as its vice-president, the conservative General Ramon González Valencia, on August 3, 1909, to govern the remaining year in order to complete the six years period Reyes left incomplete.
González summoned a National Assembly in 1910 (elected through the municipal councils) to reform the Constitution of 1886, which started sessions on May 15 and informed the results from May 25 onwards. This important reform, inspired by the members of the Republican Union (that actually were a third party with bipartisan principles of free elections and religious tolerance), banned the participation of the military in politics, established the direct popular election of the president of the republic, departmental assemblies and municipal council; it reduced the presidential period from 6 to 4 years, prohibited the immediate re-election of presidents, eliminated the figure of the vice-president and replaced it by one appointee that would be chosen by the congress; it established the system of proportions for the appointment of the members of public corporations according to the votes obtained, assuring a minimum of one third for what then was called the minority party: the opposite party; it granted the congress the faculty to choose the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, consecrated the constitutional control to the Supreme Court of Justice and the diffuse control by the judicial route. So with these reforms the presidential powers were reduced.
Before this reform, the president was chosen by intermediation of the electoral schools that represented the electoral districts, and the president who won the elections had the control to ensure the power for the following period.
This reform kept the conditions for voting. These were: to know how to read and write, to have an annual rent of at least 300 pesos or to have real estate by a nonsmaller value of 1,000 pesos.
The president kept the power to name governors who in turn would appoint mayors, corregidores, administrators, directors of post offices, heads of jails, managers of banks, and some others. The Colombian society continued accepting this as something natural.
It was not until August 27, 1932, during the government of Olaya Herrera that the number of positions in the congress was regulated with the law no. 7. This number would be proportional to the number of votes obtained by each list. Nevertheless, guaranteeing one third part for the opposition had indirect undesired effects for promoting democracy. During the conservative governments, the liberal party got accustomed to leaving the electoral process as a means of protest in several cases knowing that in any case it would obtain one third of the positions in congress, even in one occasion not even the third part was accepted.
Finally, to begin the period of transition, the Constituent National Assembly made an exception in the popular election of presidents and chose the first president of the Republican Union Carlos Eugenio Restrepo on July 15 by voting, and also it chose the first and second designates.
[edit] The Reform of 1936
During the government of Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo, on August 1, 1936 the congress made several reforms. The right of suffrage was extended to all men 21 or older, eliminating the contition of knowing how to read and write to exert it. That right was used for the first time in the presidential election of 1938 that the liberal Eduardo Santos won.
Women were granted the right to occupy most of the public positions, although they were not considered citizens for effects of nsuffrage, because they had already begun to attended University; and the control of the Catholic Church over education started to wane.
[edit] The Reform of 1954
During the government of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla by his suggestion, The National Constituent Assembly (Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ANAC), unanimously recognized the political rights of women by means of the legislative act number 3 of August 25, 1954. Women exerted this right for the first time during the plebiscite of December 1, 1957, to approve the constitutional change that would allow both traditional political parties, Liberal and Conservative, to set the National Front.
Three attempts to recognize the right of voting for women had failed before: First in 1934 during the government of Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo where a law project was presented to the congress which did not approve, neither in the constitutional reform of that year. The second was the proposal presented by liberal Alberto Lleras Camargoin 1944 but it was postponed under the excuse that this regulation would not be approved before 1948. The third was the proposal presented by the liberal Alfonso Romero Aguirre in 1948 which was supported but implemented in a gradual fashion, which in reality was another postponement.
[edit] The Reform of 1957
The temporary Military Junta that succeeded Rojas Pinilla and by agreement of the traditional political parties, authorized, in October 1957, a plebiscite for a constitutional reform by means of the Legislative Act number 0247 to fix the parity of the parties with the purpose of finding a solution to the problems of the country. This agreement and the corresponding period was called National Front.
The plebiscite of December 1, 1957, approved, with almost 94% of votes the constitutional reform for the parity in Public Corporations between both traditional parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, for a term of 12 years and determined that the elections for President of the Republic, Congress, Departmental Assemblies, and Municipal Councils would take place during the first semester of 1958.
[edit] The Reform of 1958
The first Congress elected by popular means within the National Front made a constitutional change to extend the term of the National Front from 12 to 16 years, and decided in addition that the first president would be liberal and not conservative as agreed before.
[edit] The Reform of 1968
Although the National Front ended in 1974, the constitutional reforms preparing the transition began in 1968 during the government of Carlos Lleras Restrepo previous to last president of the National Front.
With the purpose of regulating the electoral competition between parties, the reforms eliminated the distribution by halves for departmental assemblies and municipal councils, because it was already stipulated that the one for the congress would end in 1974. They also included some measures to recognize minority parties. In some other areas of the constitution the required reforms were postponed, in some cases indefinitely, as it was the case with the ordinal one of the article 120 of the Constitution in which "the right and fair participation of the second party in voting" that limited the participation of the minority parties and therefore the citizen participation remained. It established that later reforms to the constitution could be made by the congress, as long as the reform was approved by the absolute majority (two thirds) of all the members of the Senate and the Camera voting in two consecutive ordinary legislative sessions.
[edit] The Reform of 1984
During the government of Belisario Betancur the congress established the popular voting for mayors and governors on November 21, 1984, with the aim of reducing or eliminating the central control of the parties over their nominations and of extending the regional democracy.
