Part 191

Article 43. The National Legislature has the following prerogatives:

(1) to dissolve the controversies that may arise between two or more States;

(2) to locate the Federal District in an unpopulated territory not exceeding three miles square, where will be constructed the capital city of the Republic. This district will be neutral territory, and no other elections will be there held than those that the law determines for the locality, The district will be provisionally that which the constituent assembly designated or that which the National Legislature may designate;

(3) to organize everything relating to the custom-houses, whose income will constitute the treasure of the Union until these incomes are supplied from other sources;

(4) to dispose in everything relating to the habitation and security of ports and seacoasts;

(5) to create and organize the postal service and to fix the charges for transportation of correspondence;

(6) to form the National Codes in accordance with paragraph 19, article 13 of this Constitution;

(7) to fix the value, type law, weight, and coinage of national money, and to regulate the admission and circulation of foreign money;

(8) to designate the coat-of-arms and the national flag which will be the same for all the States;

(9) to create, abolish, and fix salaries for national offices;

(10) to determine everything in relation to the national debt;

(11) to contract loans upon the credit of the nation;

(12) to dictate necessary measures to perfect the census of the current population and the national statistics;

(13) to annually fix the armed forces by sea and land and to dictate the army regulations;

(14) to decree rules for the formation and substitution of the forces referred to in the preceding clause;

(15) to declare war and to require the National Executive to negotiate peace;

(16) to ratify or reject the contracts for national public works made by the President with the approval of the Federal Council, without which requisite they will not be carried into effect;

[Transcriber's note: (17) is missing.]

(18) to annually fix the estimates for public expenses;

(19) to promote whatever conduces to the prosperity of the country and to its advancement in the general knowledge of the arts and sciences;

(20) to fix and regulate the national weights and measures;

(21) to grant amnesties;

(22) to establish, under the names of territories, special regulations for the government of regions inhabited by unconquered and uncivilized Indians. Such territories will be under the immediate supervision of the Executive of the Union;

(23) to establish the modes of procedure and to designate the penalties to be imposed by the Senate in the trials originated in the Chamber of Deputies;

(24) to increase the basis of population for the election of deputies;

(25) to permit or refuse the admission of foreigners into the service of the Republic;

(26) to make laws in respect to retirements from the military service and army pensions;

(27) to dictate the law of responsibility on the part of all national employés and those of the States for infraction of the constitution and the general laws of the Union;

(28) to determine the mode of conceding military rank or promotion;

(29) to elect the Federal Council provided for in this constitution and to convoke the alternates of the senators and deputies who may have been chosen for it.

Article 44. Besides the preceding enumeration the National Legislature may pass such laws of general character as may be necessary, but in no case can they be promulgated, much less executed, if they conflict with this constitution, which defines the prerogatives of the public powers in Venezuela.

Article 45. The laws and decrees of the National Legislature may be proposed by the members of either chamber, provided that the respective projects are conformed to the rules established for the Parliament of Venezuela.

Article 46. After a project may have been presented, it will be read and considered in order to be admitted; and if it is, it must undergo three discussions, with an interval of at least one day between each, observing the rules established for debate.

Article 47. The projects approved in the chamber in which they were originated will be passed to the other for the purposes indicated in the preceding article, and if they are not rejected they will be returned to the chamber whence they originated, with the amendments they may have undergone.

Article 48. If the chamber of their origin does not agree to the amendments, it may insist and send its written reasons to the other. They may also assemble together in Congress and deliberate, in general commission, over the mode of agreement, but if this can not be reached, the project will be of no effect after the chamber of its origin separately decides upon the ratification of its insistence.

Article 49. Upon the passing of the projects from one to the other chamber, the days on which they have been discussed will be stated.

Article 50. The law reforming another law must be fully engrossed and the former law, in all its parts, will be annulled.

Article 51. In the laws this form will be used: "The Congress of the United States of Venezuela decrees."

Article 52. The projects defeated in one legislature cannot be reintroduced except in another.

Article 53. The projects pending in a chamber at the close of the sessions must undergo the same three discussions in succeeding legislatures.

Article 54. Laws are annulled with the same formalities established for their sanction.

Article 55. When the ministers of Cabinet may have sustained, in a chamber, the unconstitutionality of a project by word or in writing, and, notwithstanding this, it may have been sanctioned as law, the National Executive, with the affirmative vote of the Federal Council, will suspend its execution and apply to the legislatures of the States, asking their vote in the matter.

Article 56. In case of the foregoing article, each State will represent one vote expressed by the majority of the members of the legislature present, and the result will be sent to the High Federal Court in this form: "I confirm" or "I reject."

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Article 57. If a majority of the legislatures of the States agree with the Federal Executive, the High Federal Court will confirm the suspension, and the Federal Executive himself will render an account to the next Congress relative to all that has been done in the matter.

Article 58. The laws will not be observed until after being published in the solemn form established.

Article 59. The faculty conceded to sanction a law is not to be delegated.

Article 60. No legislative disposition will have a retroactive effect, except in matters of judicial procedure and that which imposes a lighter penalty.

Article 61. There will be a Federal Council composed of one senator and one deputy for each State and of one more deputy for the Federal District, who will be elected by the Congress each two years from among the respective representations of the States composing the Federation and from that of the Federal District. This election will take place in the first fifteen days of the meeting of Congress, in the first and third year of the constitutional period.

Article 62. The Federal Council elects from its members the President of the United States of Venezuela, and in the same manner the person who shall act in his stead in case of his temporal or permanent disability during his term. The election of a person to be President of the United States of Venezuela who is not a member of the Federal Council, as well as of those who may have to act in his stead in case of his temporal or permanent disability, is null of right and void of efficacy.

Article 63. The members of the Federal Council hold office for two years, the same as the President of the United States of Venezuela, whose term is of equal duration; and neither he nor they can be reëlected for the term immediately succeeding, although they may return to occupy their posts as legislators in the chambers to which they belong.

Article 64. The Federal Council resides in the district and exercises the functions prescribed in this constitution. It cannot deliberate with less than an absolute majority of all its members; it dictates the interior regulations to be observed in its deliberations, and annually appoints the person who shall preside over its sessions.

Article 65. The prerogatives of the President of Venezuela are:

(1) To appoint and remove the cabinet ministers;

(2) to preside over the cabinet, in whose discussions he will have a vote, and to inform the Council of all the matters that refer to the General Administration;

(3) to receive and welcome public ministers;

(4) to sign the official letters to the Sovereigns or Presidents of other countries;

(5) to order the execution of the laws and decrees of the National Legislature, and to take care that they are complied with and executed;

(6) to promulgate the resolutions and decrees that may have been proposed and received the approbation of the Federal Council, in conformity with article 66 of this constitution;

(7) to organize the Federal District and to act therein as the chief civil and political authority established by this constitution;

(8) to issue registers of navigation to national vessels;

(9) to render an account to Congress, within the first eight days of its annual session, of the cases in which, with the approval of the Federal Council, he may have exercised all or any of the faculties accorded to him in article 66 of this compact;

(10) to discharge the other functions that the national laws entrust to him.

Article 66. Besides the foregoing prerogatives, that are personal to the president of the United States of Venezuela, he can, with the deliberate vote of the Federal Council, exercise the following:

(1) To protect the Nation from all exterior attack;

(2) to administer the public lands, mines, and salt mines of the States as their delegate;

(3) to convoke the National Legislature in its regular sessions, and in extraordinary session when the gravity of any subject demands it;

(4) to nominate persons for diplomatic positions, consuls-general, and consuls; those named for the first and second positions must be Venezuelans by birth;

(5) to direct negotiations and celebrate all kinds of treaties with other nations, submitting these to the National Legislature;

(6) to celebrate contracts of national interest in accordance with the laws and to submit them the legislatures for their approval;

(7) to nominate the employés of hacienda, which nominations are not to be made by any other authority. It is required that these employés shall be Venezuelan by birth;

(8) to remove and suspend employés of his own free motion, ordering them to be tried if there should be cause for it;

(9) to declare war in the name of the Republic when Congress shall have decreed it;

(10) in the case of foreign war he can,

first, demand from the States the assistance necessary for the national defense;

second, require, in anticipation, the contributions and negotiate the loans decreed by the National Legislature;

third, arrest or expel persons who pertain to the nation with which war is carried on and who may be opposed to the defense of the country;

fourth, to suspend the guaranties that may be incompatible with the defense of the country, except that of life;

fifth, to select the place to which the General Power of the Federation may be provisionally translated when there may be grave reasons for it;

sixth, to bring to trial for treason to the country those Venezuelans who may be, in any manner, hostile to the national defense;

seventh, to issue registers to corsairs and privateers and to prescribe the laws that they must observe in cases of capture;

(11) to employ the public force and the powers contained in numbers 1, 2, and 5 of the preceding clause with the object of reëstablishing constitutional order in case of armed insurrection against the institutions of the Nation;

(12) to dispose of the public force for the purpose of quelling every armed collision between two or more States, requiring them to lay down their arms and submit their controversies to the arbitration to which they are pledged by number 30, article 14 of this constitution;

(13) to direct the war and to appoint the person who shall command the army;

(14) to organize the national force in time of peace;

(15) to concede general or particular exemptions;

(16) to defend the territory designated for the Federal District when there may be reasons to apprehend that it will be invaded by hostile forces.

Article 67. The President of the United States of Venezuela shall have the ministers for his cabinet that the law designates. It will determine their functions and duties and will organize their bureaus.

Article 68. To be a minister of the cabinet it is required that the person shall be twenty-five years of age, a Venezuelan by birth or five years of naturalization.

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Article 69. The ministers are the natural and proper organs of the President of the United States of Venezuela. All his acts must be subscribed by them and without such requisite they will not be complied with nor executed by the authorities, employees, or private persons.

Article 70. All the acts of the ministers must be conformed to this Constitution and the laws; their personal responsibility is not saved, although they may have the written order of the President.

Article 71. The settlement of all business, except the fiscal affairs of the bureaus, will be determined in the council of ministers, and their responsibility is collective and consolidated.

Article 72. The ministers, within the five first sessions of each year, will render an account to the Chambers of what they may have done or propose to do in their respective branches. They will also render written or verbal reports that may be requested of them, reserving only that which, in diplomatic affairs, it may not be convenient to publish.

Article 73. Within the same period, they will present to the National Legislature the estimates of public expenditures and the general account of the past year.

Article 74. The ministers have the right to be heard in the Chambers, and are obliged to attend when they may be called upon for information.

Article 75. The ministers are responsible:

(1) for treason to the country;

(2) for infraction of this Constitution or the laws;

(3) for malversation of the public funds;

(4) for exceeding the estimates in their expenditures;

(5) for subornation or bribery in the affairs under their charge or in the nominations for public employees;

(6) for failure in compliance with the decisions of the Federal Council.

Article 76. The High Federal Court will be composed of as many judges as there may be States of the Federation and with the following qualities:

(1) A judge must be a Venezuelan by birth;

(2) he must be thirty years of age.

Article 77. For the nomination of judges of the High Federal Court the Congress will convene on the fifteenth day of its regular sessions and will proceed to group together the representation of each State from which to form a list of as many candidates for principal judges and an equal number of alternates as there may be States of the Federation. The Congress, in the same or following session, will elect one principal and one alternate for each State, selecting them from the respective lists.

Article 78. The law will determine the different functions of the judges and other officers of the High Federal Court.

Article 79. The judges and their respective alternates will hold office for four years. The principals and their alternates in office can not accept during this period any office in the gift of the executive without previous resignation and lawful acceptance. The infraction of this disposition will be punished with four years of disability to hold public office in Venezuela.

Article 80. The matters within the competence of the High Federal Court are:

(1) to take cognizance of civil or criminal causes that may be instituted against diplomatic officers in those cases permitted by the law of nations;

(2) to take cognizance of causes ordered by the President to be instituted against cabinet ministers when they may be accused according to the cases provided for in this Constitution. In the matter of the necessity of suspension from office, they will request the President to that effect and he will comply;

[Transcriber's note: (3) is absent.]

(4) to have jurisdiction of the causes of responsibility instituted against diplomatic agents accredited to another nation for the wrong discharge of their functions;

(5) to have jurisdiction in civil trials when the nation is defendant and the law sanctions it;

(6) to dissipate the controversies that may arise between the officials of different States in political order in the matter of jurisdiction or competence;

(7) to take cognizance of all matters of political nature that the States desire to submit for their consideration;

(8) to declare which may be the law in force when the national and State laws may be found to conflict with each other;

(9) to have jurisdiction in the controversies that may result from contracts or negotiations celebrated by the president of the federation;

(10) to have jurisdiction in causes of imprisonment;

(11) to exercise other prerogatives provided for by law.

Article 81. The Court of Appeals referred to in paragraph 20, article 13 of this Constitution, is the tribunal of the states; it will be composed of as many judges as there are states of the federation, and their terms of office will last for four years.

Article 82. A judge of the Court of Appeals must have the following qualifications:

(1) he must be an attorney at law in the exercise of his profession, and must have had at least six years practice;

(2) he must be a Venezuelan, thirty years of age.

Article 83. Every four years the legislature of each State will form a list of as many attorneys, with the qualifications expressed in the preceding article, as there are States, and will remit it, duly certified, to the Federal Council in order that this body, from the respective lists, may select a judge for each State in the organization of this high tribunal.

Article 84. After the Federal Council may have received the lists from all the States, it will proceed, in public session, to verify the election; forming thereafter a list of the attorneys not elected, in order that from this general list, which will be published in the official paper, the permanent vacancies that may occur in the Court of Appeals may be filled by lot. The temporary vacancies will be filled according to law.

Article 85. The Court of Appeals will have the following prerogatives:

(1) to take cognizance of criminal causes or those of responsibility that may be instituted against the high functionaries of the different States, applying the laws of the States themselves in matters of responsibility, and in case of omission of the promulgation of a law of constitutional precept, it will apply to the cause in question the general laws of the land;

(2) to take cognizance and to decide in cases of appeal in the form and terms directed by law;

(3) to annually report to the National Legislature the difficulties that stand in the way of uniformity in the matter of civil or criminal legislation;

(4) to dispose of the rivalries that may arise between the officers or functionaries of judicial order in the different States of the federation and amongst those of a single State, provided that the authority to settle them does not exist in the State.

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Article 86. The National Executive is exercised by the Federal Council, the President of the United States of Venezuela, or the person who fills his vacancies, in union with the cabinet ministers who are his organs. The President of Venezuela must be a Venezuelan by birth.

Article 87. The functions of National Executive can not be exercised outside of the federal district except in the case provided for in number 5, paragraph 10, article 66 of the Constitution. When the President, with the approval of the Council, shall take command of the army or absent himself from the district on account of matters of public interest that demand it, he can not exercise any functions and will be replaced by the Federal Council in accordance with article 62 of this Constitution.

Article 88. Everything that may not be expressly assigned to the general administration of the nation in this Constitution is reserved to the States.

Article 89. The tribunals of justice in the States are independent; the causes originated in them will be concluded in the same States without any other review than that of the Court of Appeals in the cases provided for by law.

Article 90. Every act of Congress and of the National Executive that violates the rights guaranteed to the States in this Constitution, or that attacks their independence, must be declared of no effect by the High Court, provided that a majority of the legislatures demands it.

Article 91. The public national force is divided into naval and land troops, and will be composed of the citizen militia that the States may organize according to law.

Article 92. The force at the disposal of the federation will be organized from citizens of a contingent furnished by each State in proportion to its population, calling to service those citizens that should render it according to their internal laws.

Article 93. In case of war the contingent can be augmented by bodies of citizen militia up to the number of men necessary to fill the draft of the National Government.

Article 94. The National Government may change the commanders of the public force supplied by the States in the cases and with the formalities provided for in the national military law and then their successors will be called for from the States.

Article 95. The military and civil authority can never be exercised by the same person or corporation.

Article 96. The nation, being in possession of the right of ecclesiastical patronage, will exercise it as the law upon the subject may direct.