The plenary session was held last Friday Congress approved a bill to return to a bicameral system, although as it is a constitutional reform it must be ratified referendumas installed Constitution.
Because of this, Congresswoman Patricia Juarezbacking the norm, filed a request for revision so that the proposal could be put to a vote again in the next legislature in August.
However, if a new vote is not reaches 87 votesHow should this referendum proceed? effective? To answer this question, RPP News spoke to a constitutional lawyer Francisco Eguiguren.
communication work
The lawyer considered that the referendum on bicameralism “consistent” Considering “The holder of constituent power is the citizensHowever, he indicated that this citizen consultation process should preceded adequate “communicative work”.
“I think it’s important to do popular educational work because, finally, the people are the bearer of constituent power and it is they who choose their representatives. can’t make one reform of this magnitude no people,” he said.
In this sense, he believed that citizens should be adequately explained advantage bicameral system, so that arguments such as that this would entail an increase in the expenditure of the state treasury are left aside.
“In citizenship, what he did at the time was quite prominent. fujimori, when he moved from our tradition of a bicameral convention to a unicameral one, for a very simple argument: less people decide faster in one cell instead of two, and costs less. These are not very strong arguments, they are very useless,” he explained.
Therefore, Egiguren emphasized that “good educational workexplanations”, given the overwhelming rejection of this proposal in Referendum 2018.
Referendum on the same topic?
As is known, in December 2018a citizen consultation process was held, during which, among other things, the issue of bicameralism was considered, which was rejected by 90% of citizens. A little more than three years have passed, is it possible to return to this issue? Egiguren thought so.
“There is a rule that says that a decision taken in a referendum cannot be revised, at least in two years. And time has passed. In addition, nothing has been formulated,” he said.
In this regard, Eguiguren pointed to the political circumstances under which the said referendum took place and considered that they influenced the decision that was reflected in the polls.
“Was it a decision meditatedaware? What happens is that they were moments great political tension between President Vizcarra and Congress obstructionist. The government that proposed to return to the bicameral system, when it realizes that Parliament has made some smuggling normal (…) asks to vote “No” and the people voted in the vast majority of cases for this,” he said.
Taking this into account, counsel considered that the vote did not carefully evaluate the proposal and that the decision this may change.
“(The people) voted, knowing full well what it consists of? What could bring him positive? I think not. Therefore, if he is going to go to a referendum, debate paper, popular educationconnections,” he said.
Is the referendum not viable because it requires additional costs?
Concerning government spending that this consultation with citizens would imply, one of the arguments used by detractors of the opportunity, Eguiguren stressed that municipal and regional elections can be used to drive the process.
“We’ve got a few at the door municipal and regional electionsthat is, in the October elections, just as you put vote one more is being added with the candidates,” he explained.
With regard to the fact that little time would be allocated for communication work on the proposal, the lawyer considered “Advantage” that the population had already voted on this issue in 2018, so they would already have had an advance submission.
“It seems that there is little time left until October for the work of disseminating information, but, on the other hand, This is also not an unknown problem. explain. At the end of 2018, we voted for the referendum, and a little more than 3 years have passed,” he stressed.
On what other issues can a referendum be held?
Francisco Eguiguren clarified that the referendum is “a popular poll for accept or ratify any decision, as a rule, of a normative content”, that is, “the initiative of citizens is provided for and developed in the law”.
In this sense, he clarified that there are two possibilities.”exceptional”the constitutionally mandated holding of said popular consultation
“One of them is constitutional reform, where the Constitution states that when a reform is approved by Congress, if it receives more than half of the votes, it must be approved. must be put to a referendum for people to ratify. Another possibility (…) is when there are problems with territorial demarcationwhen it is decided, for example, whether a pair of districts will merge or the composition of the district will change to another province,” he explained.
In addition, he pointed out that “it is not expected that the President of the Republic may cause to the referendum.”
Source: RPP
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