Part 167

Article 72. The Constitution secures to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country the inviolability of their rights touching individual liberty, and security, and property, in the following terms: § 1. No person shall be forced to do, or leave undone, anything whatever, except by virtue of law. § 2. Before the law all persons are equal. The Republic does not recognize privileges of birth, or titles of nobility, and abolishes all existing honorary orders, with all their prerogatives and decorations, as well as all hereditary and conciliar titles. {524} § 3. All persons and religious professions may exercise, publicly and freely, the right of worship, and may associate themselves for that purpose, acquire property, observance being had to the provisions of the common law. § 4. The Republic recognizes only the civil marriage, the celebration of which shall be gratuitous. § 5. The cemeteries shall be secular in character, and be managed by the municipal authorities, being free to all religious sects for the exercise of their respective rites as regards their members, provided they do not offend public morals or the laws. § 6. The instruction given in the public institutions shall be secular. § 7. No sect or church shall receive official aid, nor be dependent on, nor connected with, the Government of the Union, or of the States. § 8. All persons have the right of free association and assembly, without arms; and the police force shall not intervene, except to maintain the public order. § 9. Any person whatsoever shall have the right to address, by petition, the public powers, denounce abuses of the authorities, and appeal to the responsibility of the accused. § 10. In time of peace any person may, without passport, enter or leave the territory of the Republic, with his fortune and goods, whenever and however he may choose. § 11. The house is the inviolable asylum of the person; no one can enter it at night without the consent of the inhabitant, except to aid the victims of a crime or disaster; nor by day, unless in the cases and in the form prescribed by law. § 12. The expression of opinion shall be free, in respect to whatever subject, through the press or through the tribune, without subjection to censorship, each one being responsible for the abuses he may commit, in the cases and in the form prescribed by law. Anonymous publications are forbidden. § 13. Cases of flagrante delicto alone excepted, no arrest shall be made, unless after declaration of the charge (save in cases determined by law), and by written order of the competent authorities. § 14. No person shall be kept in prison without charge formally made, save the exceptions mentioned in the law, or taken to prison, or detained there, if he give bail, in cases where such is lawful. § 15. No person shall be condemned, except by competent authority, and in virtue of law already existing and in the form prescribed by it. § 16. The law shall secure to the accused the fullest defense by all the recourses and means essential to the same, including the notice of the charge, delivered to the prisoner within 24 hours and signed by the proper authority along with the names of the accusers and witnesses. § 17. The rights of property are maintained in all their plenitude, and no disappropriation shall be made, except from necessity or public utility, and indemnity shall, in such cases, be made beforehand. Mines belong to the owners of the soil, under the limitations to be established by the law to encourage the development of this branch of industry. § 18. Correspondence under seal is inviolable. § 19. No penalty shall extend beyond the person of the delinquent. § 20. The penalty of the galleys is abolished, as also judicial banishment. § 21. The death penalty is abolished, except in the cases under military law in time of war. § 22. The habeas corpus shall always be granted when the individual suffers violence or compulsion, through illegality or abuse of power, or considers himself in imminent danger of the same. § 23. There shall be no privileged tribunal, except in such cases as, from their nature, belong to special courts. § 24. The free exercise of any profession, moral, intellectual, or industrial, is guarantied. § 25. Industrial inventions belong to their authors, to whom the law will grant a temporary privilege, or to whom the Congress will give a reasonable premium, when it is desirable to make the invention public property. § 26. To authors of literary and artistic works is guarantied the exclusive right of reproducing them through the press or by any other mechanical process, and their heirs shall enjoy the same right during the space of time determined by the law. § 27. The law shall also secure the rights of property in trade-marks. § 28. No Brazilian can be deprived of his civil and political rights on account of religious belief or duty, nor be exempted from the performance of any civic duty. § 29. Those who shall claim exemption from any burden imposed by the laws of the Republic on its citizens, on account of religious belief, or who shall accept any foreign decoration or title of nobility, shall lose all their political rights. § 30. No tax of any kind shall be collected except in virtue of a law authorizing the same. § 31. The institution of trial by jury is maintained.

Article 73. Public offices, civil or military, are accessible to all Brazilian citizens, always observing the conditions of particular capacity fixed by the law; but the accumulation of remunerations is forbidden.

Article 74. Commissions, offices, and positions not subject to removal are guarantied in all their plenitude.

Article 75. Only such public officials as have become infirm in the service of the nation shall be retired on pay.

Article 76. Officers of the army and navy shall lose their commissions only in case of condemnation to more than 2 years in prison, pronounced in judgment by the competent tribunals.

Article 77. There shall be a special court for the trial of military offenses committed by soldiers or marines. § 1. This court shall be composed of a supreme military tribunal, whose members shall hold their seats for life, and of the councils necessary for the formulation of the charge and the judgment of the crimes. § 2. The organization and powers of the supreme military tribunal shall be determined by law.

Article 78. The enumeration of the rights and guaranties expressed in the Constitution does not exclude other guaranties and rights, not enumerated, but resulting from the form of government established and principles settled by said Constitution.

Article 79. The citizen vested with the functions of either of these three federal powers shall not exercise those of another.

Article 80. Any part of the territory of the Union may be declared in state of siege, and the constitutional guaranties suspended for a determined period, whenever the security of the Republic so demands in case of foreign aggression or intestine disturbance. (Article 34, No. 21.) § 1. The power to execute the above provision may, if the Congress be not in session and the country be in imminent peril, be used by the federal executive. (Article 48, No. 15.) § 2. In the exercise of this power, during the state of siege, the executive shall be restricted to the following measures of repression against persons: {525} (1) To their detention in a place not allotted to persons accused of common crimes. (2) To banishment to other parts of the national territory. § 3. As soon as the Congress shall have assembled, the President of the Republic shall make a report to that body of the exceptional measures which may have been taken. § 4. The authorities who shall have ordered such measures shall be responsible for any abuses that may have been committed.

Article 81. In criminal cases, trials concluded may be reviewed at any time, in favor of the condemned parties, by the federal supreme court, for the purpose of correcting or of confirming the sentence. § 1. The law shall determine the cases and the form of such revision, which may be asked for by the condemned, by anyone of the people, or by the attorney-general of the Republic, ex officio. § 2. In such revision the penalties imposed by the sentence reviewed can not be increased. § 3. The provisions of the present article are applicable to military trials.

Article 82. Public officers shall be strictly responsible for the abuses and omissions that occur in the exercise of the duties of their offices, as well as for the indulgences and negligences for which they do not hold their subordinates responsible. _Sole paragraph_.—They shall all be bound by formal obligation, on taking possession of their offices, to discharge the lawful duties of the same.

Article 83. Until revoked, the laws of the ancien regime shall remain in force, in as far as they are not, explicitly or implicitly, contrary to the system of government established by the Constitution, and to the principles laid down in the same.

Article 84. The federal government guaranties the payment of the public debt, both internal and foreign.

Article 85. The officers of the line and of the annexed classes of the navy shall have the same commissions and advantage as those of the army of corresponding rank.

Article 86. Every Brazilian shall be bound to military service in defense of the country and the Constitution, as provided by the federal laws.

Article 87. The federal army shall be made up of contingents which the states and the Federal District are bound to furnish, constituted in conformity with the annual law regulating the number of the forces. § 1. The general organization of the army shall be determined by a federal law, in accordance with No. 18 of article 34. § 2. The Union shall have charge of the military instruction of the troops and of the higher military instruction. § 3. Compulsory recruiting for military purposes is abolished. § 4. The army and navy shall be made up by volunteering without bounties, or, if this means be not sufficient, by lot previously determined. The crews for the navy shall be made up from the naval school, the schools of marine apprentices, and the merchant marine, by means of lot.

Article 88. In no case, either directly or indirectly, alone or in alliance with another nation, shall the United States of Brazil engage in a war of conquest.

Article 89. A tribunal of accounts shall be instituted for the auditing of the receipt and expense accounts and examining into their legality before their presentation to the Congress. The members of this tribunal shall be appointed by the President of the Republic, with the approval of the Senate, and can lose their seats only by sentence.

Article 90. The Constitution may be amended, at the initiative of the national Congress, or of the legislatures of the States. § 1. An amendment shall be considered as proposed, when, having been presented by one-fourth, at least, of the members of either house of the Congress, it shall have been accepted in three readings (discussions) by two-thirds of the votes in both houses of the Congress, or when it shall have been asked for by two-thirds of the States represented, each one by a majority of the votes of its legislature, said votes to be taken in the course of 1 year. § 2. The proposed amendment shall be considered approved, if, in the following year, after three discussions, it shall have been adopted by a majority of two-thirds of the votes in the two houses of the Congress. § 3. The amendment adopted shall be published with the signatures of the presidents and clerks of the two chambers, and be incorporated into the Constitution as a part of the same. § 4. No project having a tendency to abolish the federative republican form, or the equal representation of the States in the Senate, shall be admitted for consideration in the Congress.

Article 91. This Constitution, after approval, shall be promulgated by the president of the Congress and signed by the members of the same.

Temporary Provisions.

Article I. After the promulgation of this Constitution, the Congress, in joint assembly, shall choose consecutively, by an absolute majority of votes in the first balloting, and, if no candidate shall receive such, by a plurality in the second balloting, the President and Vice President of the United States of Brazil. § 1. This election shall be in two distinct ballotings, for the President and Vice President respectively, the ballots for President being taken and counted, in the first place, and afterwards for Vice President. § 2. The President and Vice President, thus elected, shall occupy the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic during the first Presidential term. § 3. For said election there shall be no incompatibilities admitted. § 4. As soon as said election shall be concluded, the Congress shall consider as terminated its mission in joint session and, separating into Chamber and Senate, shall enter upon the exercise of its functions as defined by law, on the 15th of June of the present year, and can not in any case be dissolved. § 5. In the first year of the first legislature, among its preparatory measures, the Senate shall designate the first and second third of its members, whose term of office shall cease at the end of the first and second 3-year terms. § 6. The discrimination shall be made in three lists, corresponding to the three classes, allotting to them the senators of each State and of the Federal District according to the number of votes received by them respectively, so as to allot to the third for the last 3 years the one receiving the highest number of votes in the Federal District and in each State, and to the other two-thirds the remaining two names in the order of the number of votes received by them respectively. § 7. In case of tie, the oldest shall be preferred, and if the ages are equal, the choice shall be made by lot.

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Article 2. The State which, by the end of the year 1892, shall not have adopted its constitution, shall, by act of the federal legislative power, be placed under that of one of the other States, which it shall judge most suitable, until the State thus subjected to said constitution, shall amend it in the manner provided in the same.

Article 3. As fast as the States shall be organized, the Federal Government shall deliver to them the administration of the services which belong to them, and shall settle the responsibility of the federal administration in all that relates to said services and to the payment of the respective officials.

Article 4. While, during the period of organization of their services, the States shall be engaged in regulating their expenses, the Federal Government shall, for this purpose, open special credits to them, under conditions determined by the Congress.

Article 5. In the States which shall become organized the classification of the revenues established in the Constitution shall enter into force.

Article 6. In the first appointments for the federal magistracy and for that of the States, the preference shall be given to the justices and magistrates of the higher courts of the greatest note. Such as are not admitted into the new organization of the judiciary, and have served 30 years, shall be retired on full pay. Those who have served for less than 30 years shall continue to receive their salaries until they shall be employed, or retired with pay corresponding to their length of service. The payment of salaries of magistrates retired or set aside shall be made by the Federal Government.

Article 7. To D. Pedro de Alcantara, ex-Emperor of Brazil, a pension is granted, to run from the 15th of November, 1889, sufficient to guaranty him a decent subsistence during his lifetime. The Congress, at its first session, shall fix the amount of said pension.

Article 8. The Federal Government shall acquire for the nation the house in which Dr. Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães died, and shall have placed on it a memorial slab in memory of that great patriot, the founder of the Republic. _Sole paragraph_.—The widow of the said Dr. Benjamin Constant shall have, during her lifetime, the usufruct of the said house. We order, then, all the authorities to whom the recognition and execution of this Constitution belongs, to execute it and have it executed and observed faithfully and fully in all its provisions. Let the same be published and observed throughout the territory of the nation.

Hall of the sessions of the National Constitutional Congress, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in the year 1891, and the third of the Republic.

See BRAZIL: 1889-1891.

CONSTITUTION OF BRAZIL: End----------

CONSTITUTION OF CALIFORNIA. For an account of the main features of this singular constitution,

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1877-1880.

CONSTITUTION OF CALIFORNIA: End----------

CONSTITUTION OF CANADA.

CONSTITUTION OF CANADA: A. D. 1774. The Quebec Act.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

CONSTITUTION OF CANADA: A. D. 1791. The Constitutional Act.

See CANADA: A. D. 1791.

CONSTITUTION OF CANADA: A. D. 1840. The Union Act.

See CANADA: A. D. 1840-1867.

CONSTITUTION OF CANADA: A. D. 1867. The British North America Act.

The history of the Confederation of the provinces of British North America, forming the Dominion of Canada, is given briefly under CANADA: A. D. 1867. The following is the text of the Act of the Parliament of Great Britain by which the Confederation was formed and its constitution established:

An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the Government thereof; and for purposes connected therewith. 29TH MARCH, 1867.

WHEREAS the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom: And whereas such a Union would conduce to the welfare of the Provinces and promote the interests of the British Empire; And whereas on the establishment of the Union by authority of Parliament it is expedient, not only that the Constitution of the Legislative Authority in the Dominion be provided for, but also that the nature of the Executive Government therein be declared: And whereas it is expedient that provision be made for the eventual admission into the Union of other parts of British North America: Be it therefore enacted and declared by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. This Act may be cited as The British North America Act, 1867. 2. The provisions of this Act referring to Her Majesty the Queen extend also to the heirs and successors of Her Majesty, Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the advice of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, to declare by Proclamation that, on and after a day therein appointed, not being more than six months after the passing of this Act, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada; and on and after that day those three Provinces shall form and be one Dominion under that name accordingly. 4. The subsequent provisions of this Act shall, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, commence and have effect on and after the Union, that is to say, on and after the day appointed for the Union taking effect in the Queen's Proclamation; and in the same provisions, unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the name Canada shall be taken to mean Canada as constituted under this Act.

5. Canada shall be divided into four Provinces, named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

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6. The parts of the Province of Canada (as it exists at the passing of this Act) which formerly constituted respectively the Provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada shall be deemed to be severed, and shall form two separate Provinces. The part which formerly constituted the Province of Upper Canada shall constitute the Province of Ontario; and the part which formerly constituted the Province of Lower Canada shall constitute the Province of Quebec.

7. The Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall have the same limits as at the passing of this Act.

8. In the general census of the population of Canada, which is hereby required to be taken in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and in every tenth year thereafter, the respective populations of the four Provinces shall be distinguished.

9. The Executive Government and authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen.

10. The provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General extend and apply to the Governor General for the time being of Canada, or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator, for the time being carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in the name of the Queen, by whatever title he is designated.

11. There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the Queen's Privy Council for Canada; and the persons who are to be members of that Council shall be from time to time chosen and summoned by the Governor General and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and members thereof may be from time to time removed by the Governor General.