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Message: Que pasa en Montecristi?
El Comercio - Quito - Ecuador | 19 de abril del 2008
http://tinyurl.com/3wmomp
Que pasa en Montecristi?
By Francisco Carrion Mena
A great majority of Ecuadorians - I among them - voted for a change through a Constituent Assembly in order to write a new Constitution that consecrates a modern state, equitable, inclusive and sovereign. Now, four months after that Assembly was installed, I fear that the majority of Ecuadorians are seriously concerned about the result that, once that term is completed, may leave Montecristi.
I do not try to make value judgments but an establishment of facts. For a good part of the time that has transpired, the assembly members have dedicated themselves to subjects foreign to the fundamental assignment that we gave them: to make a Political Document. They have approved laws, replaced civil servants, determined salaries, amnestied delinquents or persecuted politicians, among other activities foreign to their mandate.
The signals are disquieting. And I don't refer only to how many articles have been approved and to their quality - they are few and questionable - but to the debates that they've conducted to arrive at them, without taking into account observations from specialists who have no other intention than to contribute to a better result. In the magazine Vanguard, President Alberto Acosta himself lamented not having obtained a greater and better debate.
The best Constitution ought to be concise and precise, as are the most ancient and respected of the world. Lamentably, our legal tradition and way of being do not allow us to rely on a civilized coexistence based on those premises. There is no excuse to digress and to insist on changing that which does not need to change.
What is happening in Montecristi, according to sources I know close to the majority itself, is lamentable. Save for exceptions, the level of the assembly members is limited. They may have good credentials in other areas, but when dealing with the construction of the backbone of the State, their contributions are insufficient. In order to supplement that situation there is a cloud of advisers, many of them qualified and others questionable. The first look to give sense to the work of the assembly members, the second to discredit it. But time runs, and it seems that essential subjects will be resolved in hardship.
To write a Constitution - the highest authority on Ecuadorian constitutionalism told me - is "like making a piece of jewelry." One has to know exactly how and where to encase(?) the rubies so that the jewel shines. Nonrhetorical technique is required. It is not possible to improvise: one word, one comma, can make a difference in the application of the Political Document. Recall that Rosal?a Arteaga did not arrive at the Presidency by one word. [reference to a dispute over the 1956 succession that hinged on the wording of the Constitution -ebear]
Something more: I do not believe it should surprise that the President intervenes with his opinion in the debate over the Constitution within his political movement. It has been his prime motivation and was in his program of government. The grave and risky part is that with such a well-known attitude, the result, which may be unsatisfactory, will have to be assumed by him.
[translation: ebear]
***
note: I read the opinion column in El Comercio on a daily basis, and while it's typical to see 4 or 5 favorable replies to a well written piece, I have never before seen 17. I don't have time to translate them all, but going by the comments, the mood down there is getting ugly.
ebear
http://tinyurl.com/3wmomp
Que pasa en Montecristi?
By Francisco Carrion Mena
A great majority of Ecuadorians - I among them - voted for a change through a Constituent Assembly in order to write a new Constitution that consecrates a modern state, equitable, inclusive and sovereign. Now, four months after that Assembly was installed, I fear that the majority of Ecuadorians are seriously concerned about the result that, once that term is completed, may leave Montecristi.
I do not try to make value judgments but an establishment of facts. For a good part of the time that has transpired, the assembly members have dedicated themselves to subjects foreign to the fundamental assignment that we gave them: to make a Political Document. They have approved laws, replaced civil servants, determined salaries, amnestied delinquents or persecuted politicians, among other activities foreign to their mandate.
The signals are disquieting. And I don't refer only to how many articles have been approved and to their quality - they are few and questionable - but to the debates that they've conducted to arrive at them, without taking into account observations from specialists who have no other intention than to contribute to a better result. In the magazine Vanguard, President Alberto Acosta himself lamented not having obtained a greater and better debate.
The best Constitution ought to be concise and precise, as are the most ancient and respected of the world. Lamentably, our legal tradition and way of being do not allow us to rely on a civilized coexistence based on those premises. There is no excuse to digress and to insist on changing that which does not need to change.
What is happening in Montecristi, according to sources I know close to the majority itself, is lamentable. Save for exceptions, the level of the assembly members is limited. They may have good credentials in other areas, but when dealing with the construction of the backbone of the State, their contributions are insufficient. In order to supplement that situation there is a cloud of advisers, many of them qualified and others questionable. The first look to give sense to the work of the assembly members, the second to discredit it. But time runs, and it seems that essential subjects will be resolved in hardship.
To write a Constitution - the highest authority on Ecuadorian constitutionalism told me - is "like making a piece of jewelry." One has to know exactly how and where to encase(?) the rubies so that the jewel shines. Nonrhetorical technique is required. It is not possible to improvise: one word, one comma, can make a difference in the application of the Political Document. Recall that Rosal?a Arteaga did not arrive at the Presidency by one word. [reference to a dispute over the 1956 succession that hinged on the wording of the Constitution -ebear]
Something more: I do not believe it should surprise that the President intervenes with his opinion in the debate over the Constitution within his political movement. It has been his prime motivation and was in his program of government. The grave and risky part is that with such a well-known attitude, the result, which may be unsatisfactory, will have to be assumed by him.
[translation: ebear]
***
note: I read the opinion column in El Comercio on a daily basis, and while it's typical to see 4 or 5 favorable replies to a well written piece, I have never before seen 17. I don't have time to translate them all, but going by the comments, the mood down there is getting ugly.
ebear
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