According to the established calendar, the discussion process will end on July 31 and the proposals will be submitted to a vote to decide if they will be incorporated into the text as of August 1st.
The original draft was prepared by a group of experts appointed in equal parts by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, who had to maintain a series of limits, or edges, and worked under the tutelage of a technical admissibility committee.
The full responsibility for the final drafting of the Magna Carta falls on the Constitutional Council, where there is an absolute majority of the extremist Republican Party and the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos, which can impose their criteria without any obstacle.
A good part of the amendments presented come from this sector and several are considered a step backward for the human, economic, social and cultural guarantees and rights of the population.
In the area of health, for example, they propose that each person should have the right to choose the entity providing this service, whether state or private, which means elevating private insurance companies to constitutional rank and leaving them outside government control.
The same situation occurs with the pension fund administrators, who collect workers’ contributions, profit and obtain great benefits from them and pay very low pensions.
The Republican Party is preparing to eliminate the voluntary interruption of pregnancy for the three causes currently permitted, rape, serious malformation of the fetus or danger to the life of the mother.
Labor guarantees are also restricted by limiting the right to strike to collective bargaining with employers.
Also at risk are gender parity in elected public office and the preeminence of international treaties over the country’s domestic laws, including those relating to human rights.
The text resulting from the work of the councilors will be submitted to a plebiscite with a mandatory vote on December 17 and if it is rejected by the majority of the population, the Magna Carta imposed in 1980 by the military dictatorship will remain in force for several more years.
jrr/ybc/jha/car/eam