From June 7th, we will have the opportunity to speak out in the new 2023 Constitutional Process.
There will be four ways for citizens to participate in the creation of the new Constitution.
The people in charge of executing and making effective citizen participation in the constitutional process are the University of Chile and the UC Chile through the Secretaría Ejecutiva de Participación Ciudadana [Executive Secretariat for Citizen Participation].
1. CITIZEN DIALOGUES
It’s a mechanism that will help to create a space for interaction between the citizens or groups to comment and share opinions about the regulations created in the preliminary draft.
The Secretaría Ejecutiva de Participación Ciudadana will establish the deadlines, instructions, and methodologies during the citizen dialogues. These will be systematized to report the people’s opinions and proposals, which will be uploaded to the website and presented to the Constitutional Council within 15 days.
The validity of this process is 30 days from the installation of the Technical Council on June 7th*
* According to the latest information received, the registration forms for the Citizen Dialogues are already available at the time of writing this article.
2.PUBLIC HEARINGS
Through this mechanism, people individually or on behalf of a civil society group will be able to expose their proposals and thoughts about any subjects of interest in the preliminary draft to the Constitutional Council.
These will be systematized and delivered by the Secretaría Ejecutiva de Participación Ciudadana to the Technical Council.
The applications can be sent between June 7th and June 14th. The Council will determine which ones will be heard.
3.INICIATIVA POPULAR DE NORMA [POPULAR INITIATIVE NORM]
This mechanism aims for people or groups to present a normative proposal that modifies, adds, deletes, or replaces any article from the preliminary draft.
It will be made through a digital platform, pointing out which rules of the preliminary draft wish to amend, the text that proposes its basis, and the individualization of its authors, who shall validate their identification with their clave única [digital authentication].
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Meet the entry requirements to make public the normative proposal.
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Collect a minimum of 10,000 signatures from 4 different regions.
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Once the requirements have been verified, it may be a matter of debate for the Constitutional Council.
The validity of this process is 30 days from the installation of the Technical Council on June 7th.
4.CITIZEN CONSULTATION
It’ll be an online participation process, in which people will be able to express their opinion about the rules of the preliminary draft. This will be carried out through a digital platform that will have proposals for rules of the preliminary draft and questions in which you will be able to give your opinion. To participate, you must have a clave única. The Secretaría Ejecutiva de Participación Ciudadana will make a report with the expressed opinions, which will be published on the website and delivered to the Constitutional Council.
The validity of this process is 30 days from the installation of the Technical Council on June 7th.
The objective of these 4 mechanisms is to influence the debate that the Technical Council will have.
As Fundación Glaciares Chilenos, we will cautiously follow this process and carefully review the development of this new Constitutional Process, with special emphasis on environmental topics and the protection of the Chilean glaciers. We want to emphasize that participating and being informed in the following instances is an important civic responsibility to ensure a solid and representative democracy that allows citizens to express their opinions and have an active role in the decision-making for their community and country.
- Constitucional Process. Secretaría de Participación Ciudadana. Link
- Secretaría de Participación Ciudadana. Link
- Secretaría de Participación Ciudadana. Link
