Part 164

Article 51. The Senate shall have sole power to try all impeachments presented by the House of Deputies. When sitting for that purpose they shall be under oath. When the President of the Nation is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.

Article 52. Judgment in case of impeachment, shall not extend farther than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the Nation. But the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment according to law, before the ordinary tribunals.

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Article 53. It belongs, moreover, to the Senate, to authorize the President to declare martial law in one or more points of the Republic, in case of foreign aggression.

Article 54. When any seat of a Senator be vacant by death, resignation or other reason, the Government to which the vacancy belongs, shall immediately proceed to the election of a new member.

Chapter III.

Article 55. Both Chambers shall meet in ordinary session, every year from the 1st May until the 30th September. They can be extraordinarily convoked, or their session be prolonged by the President of the Nation.

Article 56. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members. Neither of them shall enter into session without an absolute Majority of its members; but a smaller number may compel absent members to attend the sessions, in such terms and under such penalties as each House may establish.

Article 57. Both Houses shall begin and close their sessions simultaneously. Neither of them whilst in sessions can suspend its meetings for more than three days, without the consent of the other.

Article 58. Each House may make its rules of proceeding, and with the concurrence of two-thirds punish its members for disorderly behavior in the exercise of their functions, or remove, and even expel them from the House, for physical or moral incapacity occurring after their incorporation; but a majority of one above one half of the members present, shall suffice to decide questions of voluntary resignation.

Article 59. In the act of their incorporation the Senators and Deputies shall take an oath to properly fulfil their charge, and to act in all things in conformity to the prescriptions of this Constitution.

Article 60. No member of Congress can be indicted, judicially interrogated, or molested for any opinion or discourse which he may have uttered in fulfilment of his Legislative duties.

Article 61. No Senator or Deputy, during the term for which he may have been elected, shall be arrested, except when taken 'in flagrante' commission of some crime which merits capital punishment or other degrading sentence; an account thereof shall be rendered to the Chamber he belongs to, with a verbal process of the facts.

Article 62. When a complaint in writing be made before the ordinary courts against any Senator or Deputy, each Chamber can by a two-thirds vote, suspend the accused in his functions and place him at the disposition of the competent judge for trial.

Article 63. Each of the Chambers can cause the Ministers of the Executive to come to their Hall, to give such explanations or information as may be considered convenient.

Article 64. No member of Congress can receive any post or commission from the Executive, without the previous consent of his respective Chamber, excepting such as are in the line of promotion.

Article 65. The regular ecclesiastics cannot be members of Congress, nor call the Governors of Provinces represent the Province which they govern.

Article 66. The Senators and Deputies shall be remunerated for their services, by a compensation to be ascertained by law.

Chapter IV.

Article 67. The Congress shall have power:

1. To legislate upon the Custom-Houses and establish import duties; which, as well as all appraisements for their collection, shall be uniform throughout the Nation, it being clearly understood that these, as well as all other national contributions, can be paid in any money at the just value which may be current in the respective Provinces. Also, to establish export duties.

2. To lay direct taxes for determinate periods, whenever the common defense and general welfare require it, which shall be uniform throughout the territory of the Nation.

3. To borrow money on the credit of the Nation.

4. To determine the use and sale of the National lands.

5. To establish and regulate a National Bank in the capital, with branches in the Provinces, and with power to emit bills.

6. To regulate the payment of the home and foreign debts of the Nation.

7. To annually determine the estimates of the National Administration, and approve or reject the accounts of expenses.

8. To grant subsidies from the National Treasury to those Provinces, whose revenues, according to their budgets, do not suffice to cover the ordinary expenses.

9. To regulate the free navigation of the interior rivers, open such ports as may be considered necessary, create and suppress Custom-Houses, but without suppressing those which existed in each Province at the time of its incorporation.

10. To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and adopt a uniform system of weights and measures for the whole Nation.

11. To decree civil, commercial, penal and mining Codes, but such Codes shall have no power to change local jurisdiction; their application shall belong to the Federal or Provincial courts, in accordance with such things or persons as may come under their respective jurisdiction; especially, general laws embracing the whole Nation, shall be passed upon naturalization and citizenship, subject to the principle of native citizenship; also upon bankruptcy, the counterfeiting of current-money and public State documents; and such laws as may be required for the establishment of trial by Jury.

12. To regulate commerce by land and sea with foreign nations, and between the Provinces.

13. To establish and regulate the general post-offices and post-roads of the Nation.

14. To finally settle the National boundaries, fix those of the Provinces, create new Provinces, and determine by a special legislation, the organization and governments, which such National territories as are beyond the limits assigned to the Province, should have.

15. To provide for the security of the frontiers; preserve peaceful relations with the Indians, and promote their conversion to Catholicism.

16. To provide all things conducive to the prosperity of the country, to the advancement and happiness of the Provinces, and to the increase of enlightenment, decreeing plans for general and university instruction, promoting industry, immigration, the construction of railways, and navigable canals, the peopling of the National lands, the introduction and establishment of new industries, the importation of foreign capital and the exploration of the interior rivers, by protection laws to these ends, and by temporary concessions and stimulating recompenses.

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17. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, create and suppress public offices, fix their attributes, grant pensions, decree honors and general amnesties.

18. To accept or reject the resignation of the President or Vice-President of the Republic, and declare new elections; to make the scrutiny and rectification of the same.

19. To ratify or reject the treaties made with other Nations and the Concordats with the Apostolic See, and regulate the patronage of advowsons throughout the Nation.

20. To admit religious orders within the Nation, other than those already existing.

21. To authorize the Executive to declare war and make peace.

22. To grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to make rules concerning prizes.

23. To fix the land and sea forces in time of peace and war: and to make rules and regulations for the government of said forces.

24. To provide for calling forth the militia of all, or a part of, the Provinces, to execute the laws of the Nation, suppress insurrections or repel invasions. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining said militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Nation, reserving to the Provinces respectively, the appointment of the corresponding chiefs and officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

25. To permit the introduction of foreign troops within the territory of the Nation, and the going beyond it of the National forces.

26. To declare martial law in any or various points of the Nation in case of domestic commotion, and ratify or suspend the declaration of martial law made by the executive during the recess.

27. To exercise exclusive legislation over the territory of the National capital, and over such other places acquired by purchase or cession in any of the Provinces, for the purpose of establishing forts, arsenals, warehouses, or other needful national buildings.

28. To make all laws and regulations which shall be necessary for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all others vested by the present Constitution in the Government of the Argentine Nation.

Chapter V.

Article 68. Laws may originate in either of the Houses of Congress, by bills presented by their members or by the Executive, excepting those relative to the objects treated of in Article 44.

Article 69. A bill being approved by the House wherein it originated, shall pass for discussion to the other House. Being approved by both, it shall pass to the Executive of the Nation for his examination; and should it receive his approbation he shall publish it as law.

Article 70. Every bill not returned within ten working-days by the Executive, shall be taken as approved by him.

Article 71. No bill entirely rejected by one House, can be presented again during that year. But should it be only amplified or corrected by the revising House, it shall return to that wherein it originated; and if there the additions or corrections be approved by an absolute majority, it shall pass to the Executive. If the additions or corrections be rejected, it shall return to the revising House, and if here they be again sanctioned by a majority of two-thirds of its members, it shall pass to the other House, and it shall not be understood that the said additions and corrections are rejected, unless two-thirds of the members present should so vote.

Article 72. A bill being rejected in whole or in part by the Executive, he shall return it with his objections to the House in which it originated; here it shall be debated again; and if it be confirmed by a majority of two-thirds, it shall pass again to the revising House. If both Houses should pass it by the same majority, it becomes a law, and shall be sent to the Executive for promulgation. In such case the votes of both Houses shall be by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons so voting shall be recorded, as well as the objections of the Executive, and shall be immediately published in the daily-press. If the Houses differ upon the objections, the bill cannot be renewed during that year.

Article 73. The following formula shall be used in the passage of the laws: "The Senate and Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation in Congress assembled, etc. decree, or sanction, with the force of law."

Section II.—Chapter I.

Article 74. The Executive power of the Nation shall be exercised by a citizen, with the title of "President of the Argentine Nation."

Article 75. In case of the sickness, absence from the capital, death, resignation or dismissal of the President, the Executive power shall be exercised by the Vice-President of the Nation. In case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, Congress will determine which public functionary shall then fill the Presidency, until the disability be removed or a new President be elected.

Article 76. No person except a natural-born citizen or a son of a natural-born citizen brought forth abroad, shall be eligible as President or Vice-President of the Nation; he is required to belong to the Apostolic-Roman-Catholic communion, and possess the other qualifications required to be elected Senator.

Article 77. The President and Vice-President shall hold office during the term of six years; and cannot be re-elected except after an interval of an equal period.

Article 78. The President of the Nation shall cease in his functions the very day on which his period of six years expires, and no event whatever which may have interrupted it, can be a motive for completing it at a later time.

Article 79. The President and Vice-President shall receive a compensation from the National Treasury, which cannot be altered during the period for which they shall have been elected. During the same period they cannot exercise any other office nor receive any other emolument from the Nation, or any of its Provinces.

Article 80. The President and Vice-President before entering upon the execution of their offices, shall take the following oath administered by the President of the Senate (the first time by the President of the Constituent Congress) in Congress assembled: "I (such an one) swear by God our Lord, and by these Holy Evangelists, that I will faithfully and patriotically execute the office of President (or Vice-President) of the Nation, and observe and cause to be faithfully observed, the Constitution of the Argentine Nation. If I should not do so, let God and the Nation indict me."

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Chapter II.

Article 81. The election of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, shall be made in the following manner:-The capital and each of the Provinces shall by direct vote nominate a board of electors, double the number of Deputies and Senators which they send to Congress, with the same qualifications and under the same form as those prescribed for the election of Deputies. Deputies or Senators, or officers in the pay of the Federal Government cannot be electors. The electors being met in the National-capital and in that of their respective Provinces, four months prior to the conclusion of the term of the out-going President, they shall proceed by signed ballots, to elect a President, and Vice-President, one of which shall state the person as President, and the other the person as Vice-President, for whom they vote. Two lists shall be made of all the individuals elected as President, and other two also, of those elected as Vice-President, with the number of votes which each may have received. These lists shall be signed by the electors, and shall be remitted closed and sealed, two of them (one of each kind) to the President of the Provincial Legislature, and to the President of the Municipality in the capital, among whose records they shall remain deposited and closed; the other two shall be sent to the President of the Senate (the first time to the President of the Constituent Congress).

Article 82. The President of the Senate (the first time that of the Constituent Congress) all the lists being received, shall open them in the presence of both Houses. Four members of Congress taken by lot and associated to the Secretaries, shall immediately proceed to count the votes, and to announce the number which may result in favor of each candidate for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the Nation. Those who have received an absolute majority of all the votes in both cases, shall be immediately proclaimed President and Vice-President.

Article 83. In case there be no absolute majority, on account of a division of the votes, Congress shall elect one of the two persons who shall have received the highest number of votes. If the first majority should have fallen to a single person, and the second to two or more, Congress shall elect among all the persons who may have obtained the first and second majorities.

Article 84. This election shall be made by absolute plurality of votes, and voting by name. If, on counting the first vote, no absolute majority shall have been obtained, a second trial shall be made, limiting the voting to the two persons who shall have obtained the greatest number of suffrages at the first trial. In case of an equal number of votes, the operation shall be repeated, and should the result be the same, then the President of the Senate (the first time that of the Constituent Congress) shall decide it. No scrutiny or rectification of these elections can be made, unless three-fourth parts of all the members of the Congress be present.

Article 85. The election of the President and Vice-President of the Nation, shall be concluded in a single meeting of the Congress, and thereafter, the result and the electoral lists shall be published in the daily-press.

Chapter III.

Article 86. The President of the Nation has the following attributes:

1. He is the supreme chief of the Nation, and is charged with the general administration of the country.

2. He issues such instructions and regulations as may be necessary for the execution of the laws of the Nation, taking care not to alter their spirit with regulative exceptions.

3. He is the immediate and local chief of the National capital.

4. He participates in making the laws according to the Constitution; and sanctions and promulgates them.

5. He nominates the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the Inferior Federal tribunals, and appoints them by and with the consent and advice of the Senate.

6. He has power to pardon or commute penalties against officers subject to Federal jurisdiction, preceded by a report of the proper Tribunal, excepting in case of impeachment by the House of Deputies.

7. He grants retiring-pensions, leaves of absence and pawnbrokers' licences, in conformity to the laws of the Nation.

8. He exercises the rights of National Patronage in the presentation of Bishops for the cathedrals, choosing from a ternary nomination of the Senate.

9. He grants letters-patent or retains the decrees of the Councils, the bulls, briefs and rescripts of the Holy Roman Pontiff, by and with the consent of the Supreme Court, and must require a law for the same when they contain general and permanent dispositions.

10. He appoints and removes Ministers Plenipotentiary and Chargé d'Affaires, by and with the consent and advice of the Senate; and himself alone appoints and removes the Ministers of his Cabinet, the officers of the Secretary-ships, Consular Agents, and the rest of the employés of the Administration whose nomination is not otherwise ordained by this Constitution.

11. He annually opens the Sessions of Congress, both Houses being united for this purpose in the Senate Chamber, giving an account to Congress on this occasion of the state of the Nation, of the reforms provided by the Constitution, and recommending to its consideration such measures as may be judged necessary and convenient.

12. He prolongs the ordinary meetings of Congress or convokes it in extra session, when a question of progress or an important interest so requires.

13. He collects the rents of the Nation and decrees their expenditure in conformity to the law or estimates of the Public expenses.

14. He negotiates and signs those treaties of peace, of commerce, of navigation, of alliance, of boundaries and of neutrality, requisite to maintain good relations with foreign powers; he receives their Ministers and admits their Consuls.

15. He is commander in chief of all the sea and land forces of the Nation.

16. He confers, by and with the consent of the Senate, the high military grades in the army and navy of the Nation; and by himself on the field of battle.

17. He disposes of the land and sea forces, and takes charge of their organization and distribution according to the requirements of the Nation.

18. By the authority and approval of Congress, he declares war and grants letters of marque and reprisal.

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19. By and with the consent of the Senate, in case of foreign aggression and for a limited time, he declares martial law in one or more points of the Nation. In case of internal commotion he has this power only when Congress is in recess, because it is an attribute which belongs to this body. The President exercises it under the limitations mentioned in Article 23.

20. He may require from the chiefs of all the branches and departments of the Administration, and through them from all other employés, such reports as he may believe necessary, and they are compelled to give them.

21. He cannot absent himself from the capital of the Nation without permission of Congress. During the recess he can only do so without permission on account of important objects of public service.

22. The President shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Chapter IV.

Article 87. Five Minister-Secretaries; to wit, of the Interior; of Foreign Affairs; of Finance; of Justice, Worship and Public Instruction; and of War and the Navy; shall have under their charge the dispatch of National affairs, and they shall counter-sign and legalize the acts of the President by means of their signatures, without which requisite they shall not be efficacious. A law shall determine the respective duties of the Ministers.

Article 88. Each Minister is responsible for the acts which he legalizes, and collectively, for those which he agrees to with his colleagues.

Article 89. The Ministers cannot determine anything whatever, by themselves, except what concerns the economical and administrative regimen of their respective Departments.

Article 90. As soon as Congress opens, the Ministers shall present to it a detailed report of the State of the Nation, in all that relates to their respective Departments.

Article 91. They cannot be Senators or Deputies without resigning their places as Ministers.

Article 92. The Ministers can assist at the meetings of Congress and take part in its debates, but they cannot vote.

Article 93. They shall receive for their services a compensation established by law, which shall not be increased or diminished, in favor or against, the actual incumbents.

Section III.—Chapter I.

Article 94. The Judicial Power of the Nation shall be exercised by a Supreme Court of Justice, and by such other inferior Tribunals as Congress may establish within the dominion of the Nation.

Article 95. The President of the Nation cannot in any case whatever, exercise Judicial powers, arrogate to himself any knowledge of pending causes, or reopen those which have terminated.