Constitution of Murcielago
From Roach Busters
[edit] TITLE I
Rights and Guarantees
Rights and Guarantees
Individual Rights
Article 1. Every person in the United States of Murcielago has the right of protection in the enjoyment of life, honor, liberty, security, labor, and property. No one may be deprived of these rights except in conformity with laws which may be enacted for reasons of general interest.
Article 2. Slavery is forbidden in the United States of Murcielago. Slaves who enter national territory from abroad shall, by this act alone, recover their freedom and enjoy the protection afforded by the laws.
Article 3. All inhabitants of the Republic have the right to free development of their personality, with no limitations other than those derived from the rights of others and from considerations of public and social order.
Article 4. Private acts that do not offend public order or morals or harm others are exempt from the authority of the magistrates. No inhabitant of the Republic may be forced to do anything that the law does not require, or prevented from doing anything not forbidden by law.
Article 5. No law shall be given retroactive effect to the detriment of any person whatsoever.
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, possessions, or rights without a trial by a duly created court in which the essential formalities of procedure are observed and in accordance with laws issued prior to the act.
In criminal cases no penalty shall be imposed by mere analogy or by a prior evidence. The penalty must be decreed in a law in every respect applicable to the crime in question.
In civil suits the final judgment shall be according to the letter or the juridical interpretation of the law; in the absence of the latter it shall be based on the general principles of law.
Article 6. No one shall be molested in his person, family, domicile, papers, or possessions except by virtue of a written order of the competent authority stating the legal grounds and justification for the action taken. No order of arrest or detention shall be issued against any person other than by the competent judicial authority, and unless same is preceded by a charge, accusation, or complaint for a credible party or by other evidence indicating the probable guilt of the accused; in cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities. Only in urgent cases instituted by the public attorney without previous complaint or indictment and when there is no judicial authority available, may the administrative authorities, on their strictest accountability, order the detention of an accused person, turning him over immediately to the judicial authorities. Every search warrant, which can be issued only by judicial authority and which must be in writing, shall specify the place to be searched, the person or persons to be arrested, and the objects sought, the proceedings to be limited thereto; at the conclusion of which a detailed statement shall be drawn up in the presence of two witnesses proposed by the occupant of the place searched, or by the official making the search in his absence or should he refuse to do so.
Administrative officials may enter private homes for the sole purpose of ascertaining whether the sanitary and police regulations have been complied with; and may demand to be shown the books and documents required to prove compliance with fiscal rulings, in which latter cases they must abide by the provisions of the respective laws and be subject to the formalities prescribed for cases of search.
Article 7. No one may be imprisoned for debts of a purely civil nature. No one may take the law into his own hands, or resort to violence in the enforcement of his rights. The courts shall be open for the administration of justice at such times and under such conditions as the law may establish; their services shall be gratuitous and all judicial costs are, accordingly, prohibited.
Article 8. Arrest is permissible only for offenses punishable by imprisonment. The place of detention shall be completely separate from the place used for the serving of sentences.
The federal and state governments shall organize the penal system within their respective jurisdictions on the basis of labor, training, and education as a means of social readjustment of the offender. Women shall serve their sentences in places separate from those intended for men for the same purpose.
Governors of States, subject to the provisions of the respective local laws, may conclude agreements of a general nature with the federal government, under which offenders convicted for common offenses may serve their sentence in establishments maintained by the federal executive.
The federal government and the state governments shall establish special institutions for the treatment of juvenile delinquents.
Article 9.
The right to own property is guaranteed.
The law shall prescribe the manner in which property is to be acquired, used, enjoyed, and disposed of and the limitations and obligations thereon which ensure its social function and render it accessible to all. The social function of property includes whatever may be required by the general interests of the State, public benefits and health, a better utilization of the productive sources and energies in the service of the community, and a raising of the living conditions of the people as a whole.
Whenever the interest of the national community so demands, the law may nationalize or reserve to the State exclusive domain over natural resources, production goods, or others, declared to be of preeminent importance to the economic, social or cultural life of the country. It shall seek, likewise, a suitable distribution of property and the establishment of family "homesteads".
The State has absolute, exclusive, inalienable, and imprescriptible ownership over all mines, guano and nitrate deposits, metalliferous sands, salt deposits, deposits of coal and hydrocarbons, and other fossil substances, with the exception of surface clays.
The law shall determine which of the substances referred to in the preceding paragraph — among which liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons may not be considered — may be the subject of exploration or production concessions; the procedure and safeguards in connection with the granting and enjoyment of such concessions; the subject matter they will cover; the rights and obligations to which they shall give rise; and the activity that concessionaries must carry out in the public interest in order to be entitled to legal protection of rights (amparo) and guaranties. The concession shall be subject to annulment if the requirements prescribed by the law to maintain it are not met.
The law shall ensure protection of the rights of the concessionaire particularly his power to defend those rights against third parties and to use, to enjoy, and to dispose of them by an act inter vivos or mortis causa, without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding paragraph. As to matters concerning the granting, use, or cancellation of concessions which the law makes subject to the decisions of the administrative authorities — which shall not include those referring to the establishment of the requirements for mining rights (amparo) — a claim may always be brought in the ordinary courts of justice.
No one may be deprived of his property except by virtue of a general or special law which authorizes expropriation on grounds of public benefit or social interest, defined by the lawmaker. The expropriated owner shall always have the right to compensation, the amount and terms of payment of which shall be equitably determined by taking into consideration the interest of the community and of the expropriated owner. The law shall prescribe the rules for fixing the compensation, the court which is to hear claims concerning the amount, which shall in all cases rule according to law, the manner of discharging this obligation, and the time and manner in which the expropriator shall take material possession of the expropriated property.
Whenever the expropriation of rural property is concerned, the compensation shall be equivalent to the assessed valuation in effect for purposes of the land tax, plus the value of improvements not included in such valuation, and it may be paid partly in cash and partly in installments over a period of not more than thirty years, all in the manner and under conditions specified by law.
In the case of nationalization of mining activities or companies classified by law as gran minería (major mining industry), the nationalization shall include the companies or activities themselves, rights in them, or their total or partial assets. The nationalization may also be extended to assets of third parties of any kind whatsoever that are directly and necessarily intended for the normal operation of those activities or companies. The amount of the compensation, or compensations, as the case may be, shall be determined on the basis of the original cost of such assets, less amortization, depreciation, write-offs (castigos), and devaluation through obsolescence. All or part of the excess profits that nationalized companies have obtained may also be deducted from the compensation. Unless the party affected agrees to some other form of payment, the compensation shall be paid in legal tender over a period of not more than 30 years and on terms to be determined by law. The State may take physical possession of the assets subject to the nationalization immediately after the present law enters into force. The party affected may bring action against the State, insofar as the nationalization is concerned, only to assert the right to above indicated compensation. The law shall determine that partners or shareholders of nationalized companies shall have no rights to assert, either against the State or against each other, other than the right to collect their proportionate share of the compensation received by the respective companies. Likewise, insofar as the State is concerned, the law may provide that third parties, with exception of workers in the nationalized activity or company, may assert their rights only against the compensation.
The law may reserve to the national domain for public use all waters existing within the national territory and may expropriate those under private ownership in order to incorporate them in that domain. In such a case, owners of expropriated waters may continue to use them as concessionaries of a right of appropriation and they shall have the right to compensation only when, by total or partial denial of that right, they are effectively deprived of sufficient water to meet, by reasonable and beneficial use, the same needs that were met prior to denial of the right.
Small rural property holdings worked by the owner and the housing inhabited by its proprietor may not be expropriated without previous payment of compensation.
In cases where the State, or its agencies, have concluded or hereafter conclude, with due authorization or approval of law, contracts or agreements of any kind, binding them to maintain in favor of specified private parties any exceptional legal rules or special administrative treatment, such contracts or agreements may be amended or cancelled by law should the national interest so require.
In specified cases, when application of the preceding paragraph results in direct, present, and real damage, the law may provide compensation for the affected parties.
