Imperial Constitution

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Current revision as of 10:27, 25 May 2010

[edit] TITLE IV
The Emperor

(1) To appoint the Senators, in the manner established in this Constitution;
(2) To convoke the General Assembly in extraordinary session;
(3) To sanction the decrees and resolutions of the General Assembly, giving them the force of law;
(4) To approve or temporarily suspend the resolutions of the Provincial Councils;
(5) To prorogue or postpone the General Assembly and to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, in accordance with this Constitution;
(6) To appoint and dismiss freely the Ministers of State;
(7) To suspend the functions of the magistrates, in the cases outlined in Article _____;
(8) To commute sentences and grant pardons;
(9) To grant amnesty in urgent cases

Article. The Emperor has the following powers and duties:

(1) To represent the State at home and abroad;
(2) To protect the independence and honor of the Nation and the integrity of its territory;
(3) To comply with and enforce the Constitution and the treaties, laws, and other legal provisions;
(4) To appoint and remove the President of the Council of Ministers and the Ministers of State, in conformity with the Constitution;
(5) To attend the opening of ordinary sessions of the General Assembly;
(6) To convoke the General Assembly in extraordinary session;
(7) To set forth objections or make observations concerning bills which the legislative power sends him, and to suspend or oppose their promulgation in the manner provided in this Constitution;
(8) To dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, in accordance with Article _____ of this Constitution;
(9) To command all branches of the armed forces, organize them, distribute them, and utilize them in conformity with the law;
(10) To direct wartime operations as commander in chief;
(11) To command in person the armed forces with the approval of the General Assembly;
(12) To commission officers of all branches of the armed forces up to and including the rank of lieutenant colonel or its equivalent and, with the approval of the General Assembly, the higher ranks. On the field of battle he may confer these superior military offices at his own instance;
(13) To appoint the members of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the Council of Ministers, and to appoint the members of the tribunals and the judges and other magistrates of the judicial power with the approval of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice;
(14) To enforce the observance of the decisions of the judicial power;
(15) To give to the judicial power whatever assistance it may need for the expeditious exercise of its functions;
(16) To appoint, remove, and grant leave of absence, in conformity with the law, to public officials and employees whose appointment or removal does not devolve on other officials or agencies;
(17) To direct the foreign relations of the Empire;
(18) To negotiate and sign, with the approval of the Council of Ministers, treaties of peace, friendship, commerce, navigation, alliance, boundaries, and neutrality, and concordats and other international agreements, and to ratify them after approval by the General Assembly;
(19) To appoint ambassadors and ministers plenipotentiary of the foreign service of the Empire with the approval of the Council of Ministers, while being accountable to the General Assembly;
(20) To receive chiefs of diplomatic missions of foreign countries and admit their consuls;
(21) To exercise the rights of National Patronage of the Empire in the presentation of archbishops and bishops, in agreement with the Ecclesiastical Senate or the national clergy assembled, and to acknowledge or withhold the decrees of the Councils, and the bulls, apostolic briefs, and rescripts of the Supreme Pontiff, with the opinion of the Council of State;
(22) To grant, for outstanding merit, the titles, decorations, medals, diplomas, and prizes that are established by law;
(23) To authorize public officials or employees to accept posts, honors, or recompense from foreign governments;
(24) To grant honorary citizenship to foreigners who have rendered eminent services to the Empire;
(25) To commute sentences and grant pardons; and
(26) To exercise any other powers which this Constitution expressly confers upon him.

Article. For the conduct of business corresponding to the executive branch there shall be Ministers of State. The law shall determine the number of ministries, their denominations, and the departments of administration appertaining to each.

Article. The decrees, orders, and rulings of the Emperor must be countersigned by the Ministers of State of the respective departments. Without this requirement they are null and void.

Article. The Ministers of State in assembly form the Council of Ministers. Its organization and function are determined by law. The Council of Ministers has its President.

Article. The Emperor appoints and removes the President of the Council. He appoints and removes the other Ministers, on the proposal and with the agreement, respectively, of the President of the Council.

Article. The President of the Council countersigns his own appointment and that of the other Ministers.

Article. In order to be a Minister of State, a person must be a natural-born _____ citizen, shall have attained to the age of thirty years, and enjoy an excellent reputation for his integrity and knowledge of public affairs.

Article. Members of the judicial power and the members of the clergy may not be appointed Ministers of State.

Article. There are no Ministers pro tempore. The Emperor may, on the proposal of the President of the Council, entrust to a Minister, who retains his own ministry, the charge of another in the event of vacancy or impediment on the part of the serving Minister, but this charge may not be prolonged for more than thirty days or be transferred successively to the other Ministers.

Article. The President of the Council shall represent the Council of Ministers. He shall preside over its meetings and sign the resolutions and communications of the Council together with the Minister or Ministers whom the matter concerns, and without such signature no one is compelled to obey them. However, the Council may provide that certain decisions shall take effect by a general act issued in accordance with the same requirements as the preceding.

Article. The Council of Ministers shall meet regularly on the days and hours it may determine, and extraordinarily at any time by the decision of the President or two of its members.

Article. The Council shall be in session if at least five members are present. The President of the Council has the right to speak and to vote.

Article. All decisions of the Council may be revoked by a vote of the majority of its members.

Article. A discussion in the Council may be terminated at any time by majority vote. The motion to this effect shall not be discussed.

Article. The internal affairs of the Council shall be governed by such regulations as it may issue.

Article. The Council of Ministers has a deliberative vote and a consultative vote in the cases specified by law.

Article. The Emperor adjusts, with the consultative vote of the Council, conflicts of competence among the Ministers. His decision is countersigned by the President of the Council.

Article. The Ministers are responsible civilly and criminally for their own acts and for the acts of the Emperor which they countersign.

Ministers who were in attendance are jointly and severally liable for decisions of the Council of Ministers, with the exception of those who made known their adverse or negative vote.

[edit] TITLE V
The Legislative Power

Article. The legislative power shall be exercised by the General Assembly, which shall be composed of two chambers: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Article. The General Assembly is competent:

(1) To receive the constitutional oath from the Emperor, the Prince Imperial, the Regent, or Regency;
(2) To elect the Regent or Regency and demarcate the limits of their authority;
(3) To recognize the Prince Imperial as successor to the throne;
(4) To settle disputes which arise concerning the order of succession to the Crown;
(5) To accept or reject the abdication of the Emperor;
(6) To designate a new dynasty in the case of the extinction of the existing one;
(7) To enact laws relating to the independence, security, tranquility, and decorum of the Empire, the protection of all individual rights, and the fostering of education, agriculture, industry, and domestic and foreign trade;
(8) To interpret, amend, and repeal existing laws;
(9) To examine infractions of the Constitution and the laws and do what is necessary in order to make effective the responsibility of those who infringe them;
(10) To impose the necessary taxes to meet budgetary expenditures, provide for their distribution, collection and appropriation, and to repeal, modify, or increase existing taxes;
(11) To approve or disapprove annually, in whole or in part, the general accounts presented by the executive power;
(12) To authorize, on the initiative of the executive power, the national public debt, to consolidate it, to provide for its guaranties, and to regulate the public credit;
(13) To authorize the contraction of loans, or of any other kind of operations that may affect the credit and financial responsibility of the Nation;
(14) To approve, disapprove, or decrease the budgets of expenditures presented by the executive power;
(15) To establish mints, to prescribe the weight, fineness, value, type, and denomination of the coinage, to determine the value of foreign currencies, and to adopt a general system of weights and measures;
(16) To create and abolish public posts and assign to them the proper emoluments, with the exception of those whose creation or abolition devolves on other bodies according to the law;
(17) To specify the functions of government employees and indicate the territorial jurisdictions in which they are to be exercised;
(18) To establish or to modify the political or the administrative division of the country;
(19) To open and close ports and to establish, transfer, or close down maritime and frontier custom houses, and designate their location;
(20) To approve or disapprove the treaties, conventions, concordats, and other international agreements which the executive power may make with foreign powers;
(21) To determine in each ordinary legislative session, and in extraordinary sessions when required, the effectives of the armed forces;
(22) To approve or disapprove a declaration of war on the proposal of the executive power;
(23) To authorize the departure of national troops beyond the borders of the country, the passage of foreign troops through the national territory, and the sojourn of squadrons of other powers for more than one month in _____ waters;
(24) To establish the legal rules governing the alienation or lease of national property and its application to public uses;
(25) To regulate river and air navigation;
(26) To grant awards and extend temporary privileges permitted by the Constitution to authors and inventors of works of general utility and to persons who have introduced new industries or improved existing ones;
(27) To establish new archbishoprics and bishoprics or to abolish those already existing at the request of the executive power;
(28) To grant general amnesties; and
(29) To exercise any other powers that are within its competence according to this Constitution.

Article. The Chamber of Deputies shall consist of two hundred and fifty deputies elected by the system of integral proportional representation. The electoral circumscription is the province. The total number of members shall be distributed in accordance with the law, each circumscription being allotted a minimum initial representation and the remainder being distributed in proportion to the population.

Article. The Chamber of Deputies is elected for a term of four years and is renewed in full at the expiration of its mandate. However, should the Emperor make use of the authority conferred upon him by (number) of Article _____, the newly elected Chamber shall operate, in such case, only during the time left for the dissolved Chamber to complete its period.

Article. To be a deputy it is necessary to be a natural citizen in full exercise of civil rights, or a legal citizen who has exercised his civil rights for five years, and in both cases, to have attained twenty-five years of age.

Article. The Senate is composed of members appointed by the Emperor in the manner herein set forth.

Article. For purposes of appointing senators each province is divided into ten electoral circumscriptions. Each circumscription shall have one senator.

Article. Each circumscription shall elect senatorial candidates in the number and in the manner determined by law. One senator shall be appointed by the Emperor from a slate of the three candidates with the highest relative majorities in the circumscription.

Article. To be a senator it is necessary to be a natural citizen in full exercise of civil rights and to have attained forty years of age.

Article. The membership of the Senate also includes those Princes of the _____ Imperial House who have attained twenty-five years of age.

Article. Senators shall hold their positions in their own right for life, without prejudice that incompatibilities, incapacities and grounds for suspension described in this Constitution may be applied.

Article. The General Assembly shall begin its ordinary sessions on the 15th of March and adjourn on the 15th of December of each year.

At the opening of each ordinary session the Emperor shall give an account to the General Assembly in joint session of the administrative and political state of the Nation.

Article. The General Assembly shall hold extraordinary sessions when called by the Emperor, and when called by the President of the Senate at the written request of a majority of the members of the Chamber of Deputies or of the Senate.

When called by the Emperor it cannot transact any other legislative business than that mentioned in the call; but proposals of constitutional reform may be introduced, discussed and voted on, although they do not appear in the call.

When called by the President of the Senate, it may transact any business within its competency.

Article. The President of the Senate shall preside over the meetings of the Congress, but if he is unable to do so, the President of the Chamber of Deputies shall preside over them. In default of both, the Vice President of the Senate or of the Chamber of Deputies shall preside, in that order.

Article. The chambers shall open and close their sessions simultaneously and shall hold their sessions in such a way that the number held by either one shall not exceed the number held by the other by more than three, unless otherwise agreed upon by both.

Any action taken in either chamber in contravention of this provision is void.