Uruguay 1966 Constitution (reinstated 1985, reviewed 2004)

Transitory and Special Provisions

1. If the plebiscite is declared affirmative, by signed resolution of the Electoral Court, this [reform] will enter into force obligatorily from that moment.
2. The provisions contained in Sections VIII, IX, X, XI and XVI shall take effect on March 1, 1967.
3. The lists of candidates for electoral boards, created by Law 7.690 of January 9,1924, shall be included on the same ballot as are the candidates for national office.
4. The General Assembly, in joint session, within fifteen days following the inauguration of the next legislative term, shall fix the remuneration to be allotted to the President and Vice President of the Republic and to the Municipal Intendants who are elected under these proposed constitutional amendments.
5. The Ministries of Labor and Social Security and of Transportation, Communications and Tourism are hereby established, with jurisdiction over the matters their titles indicate.The present Ministries of Public Information and Social Welfare and of Industries and Labor shall become the Ministries of Culture and of Industry and Commerce.The Tourist Commission, the Postal Administration, the Telecommunications Administration, Civil Aviation, and the Weather Bureau shall become centralized services under the Ministry of Transportation, Communications and Tourism. Nevertheless, the Executive Power, under his responsibility and by decree stating reasons, may delegate such jurisdiction as is deemed necessary to ensure efficiency and continuity in providing services.

   The Executive Power is authorized to take from the general revenues the amounts needed for the organization and functioning of the aforementioned Ministries, until a law shall enact their budgets of salaries, expenditures and investments.

6. The Autonomous Entities and Decentralized Services indicated below shall be administered, until such time as a law prescribes their form of organization, as follows:
   1. The Central Bank of the Republic; the Bank of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay; the State Insurance Bank; the Mortgage Bank of Uruguay; the Electric Power and Telephone Administration, ANCAP, and the National Port Administration, by Boards of five Directors each, selected in the manner indicated in Article 187.
   2. The State Sanitation Works and the State Railways Administration, by Boards of three Directors, selected in the manner prescribed by Article 187.
   3. The Oceanographic and Fishery Service and the Primary Air Lines, by Directors General chosen in the manner indicated in Article 187.
7. A Board of Directors composed as indicated herein shall govern the Colonization Institute:
   1. A chairman appointed by the Executive Power in the manner prescribed by Article 187;
   2. One delegate from the Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture;
   3. One delegate from the Ministry of Finance [Hacienda];
   4. One member appointed by the Executive Power, who must be selected from a list consisting of two candidates nominated by the University of the Republic and two candidates nominated by the Labor University of Uruguay; and
   5. One member appointed by the Executive Power, who must be selected from among candidates proposed by the national producers organizations, the farm cooperatives, and the rural development societies, each of which may nominate one candidate.
8. As of March 1, 1967 and until a law, by an absolute majority of the full membership of each Chamber established the composition of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of the Republic and its jurisdiction, this board shall be organized in the manner prescribed by paragraph (1) of Clause F of these Transitory Provisions, and it shall have the powers and duties that presently pertain to the Issue Department of the Bank of the Republic.
9. The provisions of Section XVII shall apply to administrative acts completed or executed on or after March 1, 1952.Administrative acts performed prior to that date may be challenged, or proceedings shall be continued in accordance with the system in force at the time the acts were performed. All provisions of law that give jurisdiction to organs of regular justice over matters in first or later instance are hereby repealed, if they should be submitted to the jurisdiction of the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal.
10. Until such time as the Organic Law for the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal is promulgated:
    1. Its composition and functioning shall be governed, whenever applicable, by Law 3.246 of October 28, 1907 and amendatory and supplementary laws.
    2. The procedure to be followed before this body shall be the same as that provided in the Code of Civil Procedure for ordinary suits of lesser amount.
    3. It must render its decisions within the period established for this purpose for the Supreme Court of Justice under Law 9.594 of September 12,1936 and Law 13.355 of August 17, 1965; and the State Attorney of the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal must act within the period established under the same law for the Court Prosecutor [Fiscal de Corte]. Decisions of the Tribunal shall be susceptible of amplification or clarification in accordance with the provisions of Articles 486 and 487 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
    4. The organs of ordinary justice shall transmit to the Contentious-Administrative Tribunal an attested copy of the Judgments issued with respect to suits for redress provided for in Article 312. The Representatives of the defendant party shall likewise transmit an attested copy of such judgments to the State Attorney of the Tribunal.
    5. An action for annulment must be entered, under penalty of forfeiture, within the periods heretofore established in laws in force up to the present time, in order to be heard by judicial authority. In those cases not expressly provided for, the period shall be sixty days counting from the day following personal notification of the definitive administrative act, or of its publication in the Diario Oficial or the expiration of the time limit in which the authority may act.
11. The provisions of Article 247 shall not be applicable to Justices of the Peace who are in office at the time of the present Constitution is adopted, and they may be reelected more than once even if they fail to meet the qualifications stated in the final paragraph of that article.
12. The option to which Article 312 refers, may only be exercised with respect to administrative acts adopted after the entry into force of this reform.
13. The Civil and School Retirement and Pensions Fund, the one for Industry and Commerce, and the one for Rural Workers and Domestics and for Old Age Pensions, shall be governed by the Board of Directors of the Social Welfare Bank which shall consist of the following:
    1. Four members appointed by the Executive Power, in the manner prescribed by Article 187, one of whom shall be chairman;
    2. One elected by active members;
    3. One elected by retired members;
    4. One elected by contributing enterprises.

    Until the elections are held for choosing the Representatives of members as Directors of the Social Welfare Bank, the Board shall consist of the members appointed by the Executive Power, and during this interval the vote of the President of the Board shall be decisive in the event of a tie, even if this occurred because of his own vote.

14. Until a law is enacted providing of its composition, the National Council of Primary and Normal Education shall consist of five members, at least three of whom must be teachers with more than ten years experience, appointed by the Executive Power as provided for in Article 187.
15. The Planning and Budget Commission shall consist of the Ministers of Finance; Livestock and Agriculture; Industry and Commerce; Labor and Social Security; Public Works; Public Health; Transportation, Communications and Tourism; and Culture, or their Representatives; and the director of the office, who shall be presiding officer. It shall be installed immediately with the duties, equipment, furniture, and personnel of the present Commission for Investments and Economic Development.
16. The National Council of Supplies and Price Control, the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Low-Cost Housing [Instituto Nacional de Viviendas Económicas], the National Commission of Physical Education, and the Board of the Official Service of Radio Broadcasting, shall each consist of three members appointed by the Executive Power in Council of Ministers.
17. All boards of Directors and authorities whose composition is changed by these amendments shall continue to function until their successors are appointed or elected.
18. The provision contained in Article 77, Section 9, that refers to the separation of ballots for the Departmental Governments, shall not apply in the election of November 27, 1966.
19. Within the period of one year the Executive Power shall submit to the Legislative Power the bill referred to in Article 202.
20. The members of the present Council of Government may be elected to the offices of President or Vice President of the Republic; and members of the present Departmental Councils may be elected to the office of Intendant. The prohibitions set forth in Article 201 shall not apply to the national election of 1966.
21. The Presidency of the General Assembly shall immediately publish the new text of the Constitution.
22. This reform of Article 67 shall enter into force on the 1st of May of 1990. On the occasion of the first adjustment to be made after this date, the same shall be made, as a minimum, as a function of the variation operating in the Median Index of Salaries between the first of January of 1990 and the date of effectiveness of this adjustment.
23. Without prejudice to that established in Articles 216 and 256 and in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic, any modification of the social security, social insurance, or social provision (Art.67) that is contained in the budgetary laws or the rendering of accounts, from the 1st of October of 1992 is declared unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Justice, of office, or on the petition of any inhabitant of the Republic, shall issue a decision [pronunciamiento] without further steps, indicating the norms to which this declaration shall be applied, which shall be communicated to the Executive Power and the Legislative Power. These norms cease to produce effect for all cases, and with retroactivity to their entry into force.
24. The internal elections to select the sole presidential candidacy for the national elections to be held in 1999, as well as those which successively take place, and before the law foreseen in number 12) of Article 77 is enacted, shall be carried out in accordance with the following principles:
    1. All those registered in the Civil Registry may vote.
    2. They shall be carried out simultaneously on the last Sunday of April of the year in which national elections should be celebrated for all the political parties that concur with the latter.
    3. Suffrage shall be secrete and not obligatory.
    4. In one act and through one voting paper a vote shall be cast:
       1. for the citizen to be nominated as the sole candidate of the party to the Presidency of the Republic;
       2. for the employment [nómina] of national and departmental conventions.

       To form both conventions proportional representation shall be applied and pre-candidates may not accumulate [votes] among themselves.

       The reference to conventions [also] includes the electoral college or deliberative organ with factional electoral functions determined by the Organic Act or equivalent statute of each political party.

    5. The pre-candidate that receives the most votes shall be directly nominated as the sole candidate to the Presidency of the Republic as long as he receives an absolute majority of the valid votes of his party. In addition, that pre-candidate that has more than forty percent of the valid votes of his party and that, also surpassed the second pre-candidate by no less than ten percent of the referred to votes, shall also be [nominated].
    6. If none of the circumstances referred to in the preceding paragraph occur, the national electoral college, or the deliberative organ that takes its place, arising from said internal election, shall carry out the nomination of the candidate for the President through a public and registered [nominal] vote, by an absolute majority of its members.
    7. Those persons who present themselves as a candidate for any office in internal elections, may only do so through a political party and are disqualified from presenting themselves as the candidate for any office for another party in the next national and departmental elections.Said disqualification also reaches those who present themselves as candidates for any office before the partisan electoral organs.
    8. If the definitive vacancy of a presidential candidature occurs prior to the National Election, it shall be occupied automatically by the candidate for Vice President, unless [there is] a contrary resolution before the registry of the lists by the National Electoral College or equivalent deliberative organ convoked expressly to such effect.
25. While the law provided for in the penultimate paragraph of Article 230 is not adopted, the Sectoral Commission shall be composed of the delegates of the competent Ministries and by five delegates of the Congress of Intendants, who shall be installed within ninety days from the entry into force of this constitutional.
26. While the laws foreseen in Articles 262 and 287 are not prescribed the local authorities shall be governed by the following norms:
    1. They shall be named Local Boards, [and] shall have five members and, when they are elected, they shall be created through proportional representation, in which case the first officeholder from the list with the most votes of the most voted for party in the respective territorial district shall preside.
    2. There shall be Local Boards in all the communities in which they exist on the date in which the present Constitution enters into effect, as well as in those which, from that date, the Departmental Board create, on proposal of the Intendant.
27. While the law provided for in Article 271 is not adopted, the candidates of each party for Municipal Intendant shall be nominated by their deliberative departmental organ or by that [which], in agreement with their respective Organic Acts or Statutes[,] substitutes for the Electoral College. This organ shall be elected in the internal elections to which the Transitory Provision W) refers.The person who receives the most votes by the members of the electoral organ shall be nominated as candidate. In addition, [the candidate] may be the person who follows in number of votes as long as he receives more than thirty percent of the votes emitted. Each member of the convention or members of the organ that substitutes for the electoral college may vote for one candidate.If a definitive vacancy in the candidacy for the Municipal Intendant occurs before the departmental election, it shall be filled automatically by his first alternate, unless [there is] a resolution to the contrary before the registry of the lists by the Departmental Electoral College or equivalent Deliberative Organ, convoked expressly to this effect.

    If [a definitive absence] of the first substitute occurs, the designation of a substitute shall correspond to the Departmental Electoral College or the equivalent Deliberative Organ.

28. The current mandate of the Municipal Intendants, Town Councillors, and members of elective Local Boards, shall be extended, one sole time, until the assumption of the new authorities according to that provided in Article 262 of this Constitution.
29. The reparation that shall correspond, by the entry into force of this reform, will not create indemnization for profits lost, reimbursing only non-amortized investments.