Chile 1980 Constitution (reviewed 2021) - Page 5 of 16

Table of Contents

CHAPTER V. NATIONAL CONGRESS

ARTICLE 46

The National Congress consists of two Houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both concur to the formation of the statutes in accordance with this Constitution and have the other powers that it establishes.

COMPOSITION AND GENERATION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE

ARTICLE 47

The House of Representatives is composed of members elected by direct vote by electoral districts. The respective constitutional organic law shall determine the number of Representative, the electoral districts and the manner of their election.

The House of Representatives shall be totally renewed every four years.

ARTICLE 48

To be elected representative, it is required to be a citizen with the right to vote, to have at least twenty-one years of age, to have completed secondary education or an equivalent, and to be resident in the region to which the corresponding electoral district belongs for a period of no less than two years, counted backwards from the day of the election.

ARTICLE 49

The Senate is composed of members elected by direct vote by senatorial districts, in consideration of the country’s regions, each of which constitutes, at least, one district. The respective constitutional organic law will determine the number of Senators, the senatorial districts and the manner of their election.

Senators shall last eight years in office and will be renewed alternately every four years, in the manner determined by the respective constitutional organic law.

ARTICLE 50

To be elected senator, it is required to be a citizen with the right to vote, to have completed secondary education or an equivalent, and to have at least thirty-five years of age the day of the election.

ARTICLE 51

It will be understood that the representatives have, by the virtue of law, their residence in the corresponding region, while in performance of their duties.

The elections of representatives and senators will be made jointly.

Representatives may be successively reelected in office for up to two terms; senators may be successively reelected in office for up to one term. For these purposes, it will be understood that both representatives and senators have held office for a period when they have completed more than half of their mandate.

The vacancies of the representatives and senators will be filled with the citizen that the political party to which the parliamentarian who caused the vacancy belonged at the moment of being elected, appoints.

Parliamentarians elected as independents will not be replaced. Parliamentarians elected as independents that have postulated themselves integrating a list together with one or more political parties, shall be replaced by the citizen that the political party that the respective parliamentarian indicates at the moment of presenting its candidature declaration, appoints.

The replacement shall comply with the requirements to be elected representative or senator, as appropriate. However, a representative may be nominated to occupy the office of Senator, in which case, the norms of the preceding paragraphs to fill the vacancy left by the representative, who when assuming his new office shall cease in the one that he was exercising, shall be applied.

The new representative or senator will exercise his functions for the term remaining to the originator of the vacancy.

In no case shall complementary elections proceed.

EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ARTICLE 52

The exclusive powers of the House of Representatives are:

To supervise the acts of the Government. To exercise this power the House may:
1. Adopt agreements or suggest observations, with the vote of the majority of the present Representative, which will be transmitted in writing to the President of the Republic, who shall give a founded answer through the corresponding Minister of State, within thirty days.Notwithstanding the foregoing, any representative, with the favorable vote of one-third of the present members of the House, may request certain records from the Government. The President of the Republic shall give a founded answer through the corresponding Minister of State, within the same period prescribed in the preceding paragraph.
  In no case the agreements, observations or requests for records will affect the political responsibility of the Ministers of State.
2. Summon a Minister of State, at the request of at least one-third of the Representative in exercise, in order to ask him questions regarding matters related to the exercise of his office. However, the same Minister cannot be summoned for this purpose more than three times within a calendar year, without prior approval of the absolute majority of the Representative in exercise.The attendance of the Minister shall be compulsory and he shall have to respond to the questions and inquiries that motivate his summoning, and
3. Create special investigating commissions at the request of at least two-fifths of the representatives in exercise, with the object of gathering information relative to certain acts of the Government.Investigating commissions, at the petition of one-third of their members, may issue summons and request records. The Ministers of State, other officials of the Administration and the personnel of State enterprises or of those in which it has majority participation, that are summoned by this commissions, will be obliged to appear and to provide the records and information that is requested to them.
  However, the Ministers of State cannot be summoned more than three times by the same investigating commission, without prior agreements of the absolute majority of its members.
  
  The constitutional organic law of the National Congress shall regulate the functioning and powers of investigating commissions and the manner of protecting the rights of the persons summoned or mentioned in them.
To declare if there is cause or not for the accusations made by no less than ten nor more than twenty of its members, formulated against the following persons:
1. The President of the Republic, for acts of his administration which have seriously affected the honor or security of the Nation, or have openly violated the Constitution or the laws. This accusation may be filed while the President is in office and in the six months following the expiration of his position. During this latter period he shall not leave the Republic without agreement of the House;
2. The Ministers of State, for having seriously affected the honor and security of the Nation, for violating the Constitution or the laws or for not having executed them, and for the crimes of treason, extortion, embezzlement of public funds and bribery;
3. The judges of the superior courts of justice and the Comptroller General of the Republic, for notorious dereliction of their duties;
4. The generals or admirals of the institutions belonging to the Forces of National Defense, for having gravely affected the honor and security of the nation, and
5. The regional presidential delegates, provincial presidential delegates, and the authority exercising the government in special territories to which article 126 bis refers, for breach of the Constitution and for the crimes of treason, sedition, embezzlement of public funds and extortion.
The accusation will be processed in conformity with the constitutional organic law relative to the Congress.

The accusations referred to in letters b), c), d) and e) may be interposed while the affected party is in office or in the three months following the expiration of his position. On interposing the accusation, the affected party shall not leave the country without the permission of the House and shall not do it any case if the accusation is already approved by it.

To declare that there is cause for the accusation against the President of the Republic or a regional governor, the vote of the majority of the Representative in exercise will be needed.

In the other cases the vote of the majority of the representatives present will be needed and the accused party shall be suspended from his duties as soon as the House declares that there is cause for the accusation. The suspension shall cease if the Senate rejects the accusation or if it does not pronounce itself within the next thirty days.

EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF THE SENATE

ARTICLE 53

The exclusive powers of the Senate are:

To hear the accusations that the House of Representatives brings in pursuant to the previous article.The Senate shall act as jury and will be limited to state whether or not the accused is guilty or not of the crime, breach or abuse of power of which he is being accused.
The declaration of guilt must be pronounced by two-thirds of the senators in exercise in the case of an accusation against the President of the Republic or a regional governor, and by the majority of senators in exercise in the other cases.

By the declaration of guilt the accused is removed from office, and may not hold any public function, whether or not of popular election, for the term of five years.

The functionary declared guilty will be judged according to the laws by the competent court, both in regard to the application of the sanction prescribed for the crime, if any, as to make the civil responsibility for the damages caused to the State or particulars, effective;
To decide whether or not there is cause for the admission of judicial actions that any person pretends to initiate against any Minister of State, on the grounds of damages which he may have unjustly suffered by an act of the former in the performance of his office;
To hear of disputes of jurisdictional competence that arises between political or administrative authorities and the superior courts of justice;
To grant the rehabilitation of citizenship in the case of article 17, number 3 of this Constitution;
To provide or withhold its consent to the acts of the President of the Republic, in the cases in which the Constitution or the law require it.If the Senate does not pronounce itself within thirty days after the request of urgency by the President of the Republic, its consent will be understood as granted;
To grant its agreement for the President of the Republic to leave the country for more than thirty days or counting from the day established in the first paragraph of article 26;
To declare the incapacity of the President of the Republic or of the elected President when a physical or mental impediment disqualifies him from performing his functions; and to also declare, when the President of the Republic resigns to his position, if the motives that originate it are or not founded and, in consequence, accept it or discard it. In both cases it shall previously hear the Constitutional Court;
To approve, by a majority of its members in exercise, the declaration of the Constitutional Court to which the second part of number 10 of article 93 refers to;
To approve, in a session specially convoked for that purpose and with the vote of two-thirds of the senators in exercise, the appointment of the Justices and judicial prosecutors of the Supreme Court and of the National Prosecutor, and
To give its opinion to the President of the Republic where he so requests it.

The Senate, its commissions and its other bodies, including the parliamentary committees if there were any, shall not supervise the acts of the Government or of the entities that depend on it, nor can they adopt agreements that imply supervision.

EXCLUSIVE POWERS OF THE CONGRESS

ARTICLE 54

The powers of the Congress are:

To approve or reject the international treaties presented by the President of the Republic prior to their ratification. The approval of a treaty will require, in each House, the quorum that corresponds, in accordance with article 66, and shall be submitted, as appropriate, to the formalities of a law.The President of the Republic shall inform the Congress about the content and scope of the treaty, as well as of the reservations that he pretends to confirm or formulate to it.
The Congress may suggest the formulation of reservations and interpretative declarations to an international treaty, during the process of its approval, as long as they proceed in conformity to what is established in the treaty itself or in the general rules of international law.

The measures that the President of the Republic adopts or the agreements that he celebrates to comply with a treaty in force will not require new congressional approval, unless they concern matters of law. The treaties celebrated by the President of the Republic in exercise of his regulatory power will not require congressional approval.

The provisions of a treaty may only be repealed, amended or suspended in the manner provided in the treaties themselves or in accordance with the general rules of international law.

It corresponds to the President of the Republic the exclusive power to denounce a treaty or withdraw from it, for which he shall ask for the opinion of both branches of the Congress, in the case that the treaties have been approved by it. Once the denunciation or withdrawal has produced its effects in conformity with the provisions of the international treaty, it shall cease to have effect in the Chilean legal system.

In the case of the denunciation or withdrawal from a treaty that was approved by Congress, the President of the Republic shall inform of that to it within fifteen days of effecting the denunciation or withdrawal.

The withdrawal of a reservation that has been made by the President of the Republic and that the National Congress took into account at the time of approving a treaty, will require previous agreement of it, pursuant to the provisions of the respective constitutional organic law. The National Congress shall pronounce itself within thirty days counted from the reception of the request in which the corresponding agreement is required. If it does not pronounce itself within this period, it shall be deemed to have approved the withdrawal of the reservation.

In accordance with the provisions of the law, due publicity shall be given to the facts relating to the international treaty, such as its entry into force, the formulation and withdrawal of reservations, the interpretative declarations, objections to a reservation and its withdrawal, the denunciation of the treaty, withdrawal, suspension, termination and nullity of it.

In the same agreement of approval of a treaty the Congress may authorize the President of the Republic so that, during the time the treaty is in force, he can dictate the provisions with force of law that he deems necessary for its full implementation, being in such case applicable the provisions of the second and following paragraphs of article 64, and
To pronounce itself, when appropriate, in regard to the states of constitutional exception, in the manner prescribed by the second paragraph of article 40.

OPERATION OF THE CONGRESS

ARTICLE 55

The National Congress will install itself and begin its period of sessions in the manner that its constitutional organic law determines.

In any case, it will always be understood as convoked by right to take cognizance of the declaration of the states of constitutional exception.

The constitutional organic law referred to in the first paragraph, will regulate the procedure of constitutional accusations, the qualification of urgency pursuant to what is state in article 74 and everything related to the internal processing of the law.

ARTICLE 56

The House of Representatives and the Senate cannot enter into sessions or adopt agreements without the concurrence of one-third of its members in exercise.

Each of the Houses will establish in its own rules the closure of debate by simple majority.

ARTICLE 56 BIS

During the month of July of each year, the President of the Senate and the President of the House of Representatives shall give public account of the activities performed by the Houses that they preside, to the country, in a plenary session of the Congress.

The regulation of each House shall determine the content of that account and shall regulate the manner of fulfilling this obligation.

COMMON NORMS FOR BOTH REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS

ARTICLE 57

The persons that cannot be candidates to be representatives or senators are:

The Ministers of State;
The regional governors, regional presidential delegates, provincial presidential delegates, mayors, regional councilors, municipal councilors and undersecretaries;
The members of the Council of the Central Bank;
The judges of the superior courts of justice and the career judges;
The members of the Constitution Court, of the Election Qualifying Court and of the regional electoral courts;
The Comptroller General of the Republic;
The persons that perform a directive position of a trade union or neighborhood nature;
The natural persons and managers or administrators of legal persons that celebrate or secure contracts with the State;
The National Prosecutor, the regional prosecutors and adjunct prosecutors of the Public Ministry, and
The Commanders in Chief of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Director General of the Carabineros [Police], the Director General of the Investigations Police and the officers from the Armed Forces and the Forces of Public Order and Security.

The ineligibilities set forth in this article shall be applicable to those that had the qualities or positions specified above within the immediately previous year of the election; except with respect to the persons mentioned in numbers 7) and 8), which shall not meet those conditions at the time of registering their candidacy and those indicated in number 9), for which the term of ineligibility will be of the two years immediately previous to the year of the election. If they weren’t elected in an election, they may not return to the same office nor be appointed to similar positions to those which they held up to a year after the election.

ARTICLE 58

The positions of representatives and senators are incompatible with one another and with any other employment or commission paid with funds from the Treasury, municipalities, of autonomous fiscal entities, semi-fiscal or of the enterprises of the State or in which the Treasury has intervention by contributions of capital, and with any other function or commission of the same nature. Teaching jobs and functions or commissions of equal character of superior, secondary and special education are excluded.

Likewise, the positions of representatives and senators are incompatible with the duties of directors and advisers, even if they are ad honorem, in the autonomous fiscal entities, semi-fiscal or in State enterprises, or in which the State has participation by contributions of capital.

By the mere fact of its proclamation by the Election Qualifying Court, the representative or senator will cease in the incompatible position, job or commission that he holds.

ARTICLE 59

No representative or senator, from the moment of his proclamation by the Election Qualifying Court can be appointed to a job, function or commission of those referred to in the previous article.

This provision does not apply in case of external war; nor does it apply to the offices of President of the Republic, Minister of state and diplomatic agent; but only the offices conferred in a state of war are compatible with the functions of representative and senator.

ARTICLE 60

The representative or senator who absents himself form the country for more than thirty days without permission from the House to which he belongs or, in recess of it, of its President, will cease in his position.

The representative or senator that during his term celebrates or secures contracts with the State, or acts as procurator or agent in private matters of an administrative nature in the provision of public jobs, councillorship, functions or commissions of a similar nature, will cease in his position. He who accepts to be director of a bank or of a public limited company, or to hold positions of similar importance in these activities, shall incur in the same sanction.

The inability to which the preceding paragraph refers to will take place whether the representative or senator acts by himself or through another person, natural or legal, or through a society of persons of which he forms part.

The representative or senator that acts as a lawyer or mandatory in any type of trial, that exercises any influence before the administrative or judicial authorities in favor or in representation of the employer or the workers in negotiations or labor disputes, whether they are from the public or private sector, or that intervenes in them before any of the parties, will cease in his position. The same sanction shall apply to the parliamentarian that acts or intervenes in student activities, regardless of the branch of education, in order of undermining its normal development.

Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph seven of number 15 of article 19, the representative or senator that who orally or in writing incites public disorder or promotes the change of the institutional legal order by different means from those established in this Constitution, or that seriously compromises the safety or the honor of the Nation, will cease in his position.

He who loses the office of representative or senator for any of the causes listed above will not be eligible for any public function or employment, whether or not of popular election, for a term of two years, except in the cases of paragraph seven of number 15 of article 19, in which the sanctions referred therein shall apply.

The representative or senator that has gravely infringed the rules on transparency limits and control of electoral expenditure will cease in his position from the date that the Election Qualifying Court declares it through final sentence, at the request of the Directive Council of the Electoral Service. A constitutional organic law shall specify the cases in which there is a serious breach. Likewise, the representative or senator that loses his office will not be eligible for any public function or employment for a period of three years, nor will he be able to be candidate to popular election positions in the two elections after his cessation.

The representative or senator that, during his term, loses any of the general eligibility requirements or incurs in any of the causes for inability to which article 57 refers, notwithstanding the exception contemplated in the second paragraph of article 59 regarding the Ministers of State.

The representatives and senators may resign to their positions when they are affected by a serious illness that prevents them from performing their duties and the Constitutional Court so qualifies it.

ARTICLE 61

The representatives and senators are only inviolable for the opinions that they express and the votes they cast in the performance of their duties, in House or commission sessions.

No representative or senator, from the day of his election or from his oath, according to the case, may be accused or deprived of his liberty, except in the case of a flagrant crime, if the Court of Appeals of the respective jurisdiction, in plenary, has not previously authorized the accusation declaring that there is cause for legal proceedings. This decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court.

In case of a representative or senator being arrested for a flagrant crime, he will be put immediately at the disposition of the respective Court of Appeals, with corresponding summary information. The Court will then proceed, in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.

From the moment that it is declared, through a final resolution, that there is cause for legal proceeding, the imputed representative or senator becomes suspended from his office and subject to the competent judge.

ARTICLE 62

The representatives and senators shall receive, as solo income, a fee equivalent to the remuneration of a Minister of State.

MATTERS OF STATUTE

ARTICLE 63

The only matters of statute are:

Those that in virtue of the Constitution must be object of constitutional organic laws;
Those that the Constitution requires to be regulated by a law;
Those which are the object of codification, be it civil, commercial, procedural, criminal, or other;
The basic matters relating to the labor, union, provisional and social security juridical regimes;
Those that regulate public honors to great servants;
Those that modify the form or characteristics of the national emblems;
Those that authorize the State, its organisms and the municipalities, to contract loans, which must be defined and finance specific projects. The law shall indicate the sources of resources from which the service of the debt should be made. However, a qualified quorum law will be needed to authorize the hiring of those loans the expiration date of which exceeds the duration of the term of the respective presidential term.What is established in this number will not apply to the Central Bank;
Those that authorize the celebration of any kind of operations that may compromise directly or indirectly the credit or financial responsibility of the State, its agencies and municipalities.This provision shall not apply to the Central Bank.
Those that establish the norms under which State enterprises and those in which it has participation may contract loans, which in no case may be celebrated with the State, its organisms or enterprises;
Those that lay down the norms on alienation of the assets of the State or of the municipalities and their lease and concession;
Those that establish or modify the political and administrative division of the country;
Those that indicate the value, type and denomination of the currency and the system of weights and measures;
Those that establish the forces of air, sea and land that have to stand in peacetime or war, and the norms that permit the entry of foreign troops into the territory of the Republic, as, likewise, the deployment of national troops outside of it;
The others which the Constitution establishes as laws of exclusive initiative of the President of the Republic;
Those that authorize the declaration of war, proposed by the President of the Republic;
Those that grant general pardons and amnesties and those that lay down the general norms under which the power of the President of the Republic to concede individual pardons and grace pensions must be exercised.The laws that grant general pardons and amnesties will always require a qualified quorum. However, this quorum will be of two-thirds of the Representative and senators in exercise when concerning crimes established in article 9;
Those that indicate the city in which the President of the Republic must reside, where the National Congress must celebrate its sessions and where the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court must function;
Those that establish the bases for the procedures that govern the actions of the public administration;
Those that regulate the operation of lotteries, racetracks and gambling in general, and
Any other general and mandatory regulation that establishes the essential foundations of a legal system.

ARTICLE 64

The President of the Republic may request authorization from the National Congress to enact provisions with force of law for a period that does not exceed a year on matters falling within the domain of the law.

This authorization may not extend to the nationality, citizenship, elections nor plebiscite, or to matters covered by constitutional guarantees or which are subject to constitutional organic statutes or qualified quorum laws.

The authorization may not include powers affecting the organization, powers and regime of the officials of the Judiciary, National Congress, Constitutional Court or of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic.

The law that grants the referred authorization will indicate the precise matters over which the delegation will fall and may establish or determine the limitations, restrictions and formalities that are deemed convenient.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraphs, the President of the Republic is authorized to establish the consolidated, coordinated, and systematized text of the laws when it is convenient for its best execution. In exercise of this power, he may introduce to it the formal changes that are indispensable, without altering, in any case, its true meaning and scope.

The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic shall register these decrees with force of law, having to reject them when they exceed or contravene the referred authorization.

The decrees with force of law will be subjected in what respects to their publication, force and effects, to the same norms that govern the law.

FORMATION OF THE STATUTES

ARTICLE 65

Laws may originate in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, by message from the President of the Republic or by motion of any of its members. The motions cannot be signed by more than ten Representative or five senators.

Laws on taxes of any nature, on the budgets of the public administration, can only originate in the House of Representatives. Laws on amnesty and general pardons can only originate in the Senate.

The President of the Republic has the exclusive initiative of the bills that relate to altering the political or administrative division of the country, or to the financial or budgetary administration of the State, including the modifications of the Budget Law, and the matters set out in numbers 10 and 13 of article 63.

The President of the Republic has the exclusive initiative to:

Lay, cancel, reduce, or remit taxes of any class or nature, establish exemptions or modify the existing ones, and determine their form, proportionality or progression;
Create new public services or rented jobs, whether fiscal, semi-fiscal, autonomous or of the enterprises of the State; suppress them and determine their functions and powers;
Contract loans or celebrate any other class of operations that may compromise the credit or financial liability of the State, of the semi-fiscal, autonomous, entities of the regional governments or of the municipalities, and cancel, reduce, or modify obligations, interests or other financial burdens of any nature established in favor of the Treasury or of the bodies or entities referred to;
Set, modify, concede or increase remunerations, retirements, pensions, widows’ and orphans’ allowances, rents and any other class of emoluments, loans or benefits to the service or retired personnel and to the beneficiaries of widows’ and orphans’ allowances, of the Public Administration and other organisms and entities aforementioned, with the exception of the remuneration of the positions indicated in the first paragraph of article 38 bis, as well as to set the minimum wages for workers in the private sector, compulsory increase their wages and other economic benefits or alter the bases that serve to determine them; all of which are notwithstanding of what is established in the following number;
Establish the modalities and procedures of collective negotiation and determine the cases in which it is not possible to negotiate, and
Set or change the rules about social security or that have an impact on it, on both the public and the private sector.

The National Congress will only be able to accept, reduce or reject the services, jobs, emoluments, loans, benefits, expenses and the other initiatives on the matter that the President of the Republic proposes.

ARTICLE 66

The statutory laws that interpret constitutional precepts will need, for their approval, amendment or repeal, three-fifths of the representatives and senators in exercise.

The statutory laws to which the Constitution confers the character of constitutional organic laws will require, for their approval, amendment or repeal, of the four sevenths of the Representative and senators in exercise.

The statutory laws of qualified quorum will be established, amended or repealed by the absolute majority of the Representative and senators in exercise.

The rest of the statutory laws require the majority of the present members of each House, or the majorities that are applicable in conformity to article 68 et seq.

ARTICLE 67

The Budget Law bill shall be presented by the President of the Republic to the National Congress, at least three months prior to the date in which it must start to take effect; and if the Congress does not dispatch it within sixty days of its presentation, the bill presented by the President of the Republic will be effective.

The National Congress may not increase nor decrease the estimation of the revenue; it can only reduce the expenses contained in the Budget Law bill, except those established by permanent law.

The estimation of the returns of the resources stated in the Budget Law and of the new ones that are established by any other bill, will correspond exclusively to the President, having been previously informed by the respective technical organisms.

The Congress shall not be able to approve any new expenditure from the funds of the Nation without indicating, at the same time, the sources of resources necessary to meet that expense.

If the source of resources granted by Congress were to be insufficient to fund any new expense that is approved, the President of the Republic, at the time of promulgating the law, after a favorable report from the service or institution through which the new income is collected, endorsed by the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, shall reduce all expenses proportionally, whatever their nature.

ARTICLE 68

The bill which is rejected in general in the House of origin cannot be renewed until after a year. However, the President of the Republic, in case of a bill of his own initiative, may ask that the message be sent to the other House and, if the latter approves it in general by two-thirds of its present members, it will return to the House of origin and will only be considered rejected if this House rejects it by the vote of two-thirds of its present members.

ARTICLE 69

Any bill may be subject to additions or corrections in its proceedings, both in the House of Representatives as in the Senate; but in no case the ones that do not have a direct relation with the central or fundamental ideas of the bill will be admitted.

Once a bill is approved in the House of origin, it will immediately pass to the other for its discussion.

ARTICLE 70

The bill which is rejected in its entirety by the reviewing House will be considered by a joint commission of equal numbers of Representative and senators, which will propose the form and manner of resolving the difficulties. The bill of the joint commission will return to the House of origin and, to be approved in this as in the reviewing House, it will require the majority of the members present in each one of them. If the mixed commission does not reach an agreement, or if the House of origin rejects the bill of this commission, the President of the Republic may require that that House pronounces itself on whether it insists by two-thirds of its members present in the bill approved in the first procedure. If the insistence is agreed, the bill will pass for the second time to the House that rejected it, and it will be understood that this one rejects it only if two-thirds of its present members concur in it.

ARTICLE 71

The bill that has been subjected to additions or amended by the reviewing House will return to the one of origin, and in this one it will be understood that the additions and amendments are approved with the vote of the majority of the present members.

If the additions or amendments were rejected, a mixed commission will be formed and it will proceed in the same manner indicated in the preceding article. If the mixed commission does not reach an agreement to settle the differences between the Houses, or if any of the Houses reject the proposition of the mixed commission, the President of the Republic may ask to the House of origin to consider again the bill approved in the second stage by the reviewing House. If the House of origin rejected the additions or amendments by two-thirds of its present members, there will be no law in that part or in its entirety; but, if there is a majority for rejection which is less than two-thirds, the bill shall pass to the reviewing House, and it will be understood to be approved by the vote of two-thirds of the members present in the latter.

ARTICLE 72

Once a bill is approved by both Houses it shall be forwarded to the President of the Republic, who, if he approves it, will arrange its promulgation as a law.

ARTICLE 73

If the President of the Republic disapproves the bill, he will return it to the House of origin with the appropriate observations, within a period of thirty days.

In no case will the observations that have no direct relation with the main or fundamental ideas of the bill be admitted, unless they had been considered in the respective message.

If both Houses approve the observations, the bill will have force of law and will be returned to the President for its promulgation.

If both Houses reject all or some of the observations and insist by two-thirds of its present members on all or part of the bill approved by them, it will be returned to the President for its promulgation.

ARTICLE 74

The President of the Republic may declare the urgency in the dispatch of a bill, in one or all of its stages of processing, and in which case, the respective House shall pronounce itself within a maximum period of thirty days.

The determination of the urgency shall be made by the President of the Republic in accordance with the constitutional organic law concerning the Congress, which will also establish all that is related with the internal processing of the law.

ARTICLE 75

If the President of the Republic does not return the bill within thirty days from the date of its transmittal, it shall be understood that he approves it and it will be promulgated as law.

The promulgation shall be made always within the period of ten days, counted from the date on which it should proceed.

The publication shall be made within the five working days from the date in which the promulgation decree is totally processed.