CHAPTER III. CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES
ARTICLE 19
The Constitution guarantees to all persons:
- The right to life and to the physical and mental integrity of the person.The law protects the life of the one about to be born.
The death penalty may only be instituted for a crime established in a law approved by a qualified quorum.
The application of any illegitimate constrain is forbidden;
- Equality before the law. In Chile there are neither privilege persons nor groups. In Chile there are no slaves, and anyone that sets foot on its territory will become free. Men and women are equal before the law.Neither the law nor any authority whatsoever may establish arbitrary differences;
- Equal protection under the law in the exercise of their rights.All person has the right to legal defense in the manner indicated by the law and no authority or individual may prevent, restrict or distort the due intervention of the legal counsel should it have been sought. As regards to members of the Armed Forces and of the Public Order and Security Forces, this right shall be governed, in what regards the administrative and disciplinary matters, by the relevant norms of their respective statutes.
The law shall provide means to provide legal advice and defense to those who cannot obtain it for themselves. The law shall establish the cases and the way in which natural persons who are victims of crimes will have free legal advice and defense, in order of exercising the criminal action recognized by this Constitution and the laws.
Any person charged with a crime has the inalienable right to be assisted by a defense counsel provided by the State if he fails to appoint one at the opportunity provided by the law.
No one may be judged by special commissions but by the Court specified by law and provided such court has been established prior to the perpetration of the act.
Any ruling of a body that exercises jurisdiction must be based on a previous legally held process. The legislator must always establish the guarantees of a rational and just procedure and investigation.
The law cannot presume de jure criminal liability.
No crime will be punished with a different penalty from that prescribed in a law enacted prior to its perpetration, unless a new law favors the affected.
No law may establish penalties for crimes which have not been expressly described therein;
- Respect and protection of the private life and honor of the individual and his family, and specifically, the protection of his personal data. The treatment and protection of these data will be handled in the manner and conditions set forth by law;
- The inviolability of the home and of all forms or private communication. The home can only be searched and the private communications and documents intercepted, opened or registered in the circumstances and manner prescribed by law;
- The freedom of conscience, expression of any belief and the free exercise of all religions which are not contrary to morals, good customs or public order.Religious denominations may erect and maintain temples and their dependencies under the safety and hygiene conditions established by the laws and ordinances.
Churches, and religious denominations and institutions of any cult shall have the rights, in regard to assets, which the laws currently in force grant and recognize. The temples and their dependencies, used exclusively for the service of a cult, shall be exempt from all taxes;
- The right to personal freedom and to individual security.Therefore,
- Everyone has the right to reside and remain in any place of the Republic, move from one place to another and enter and leave its territory, provided that the norms established in the law are respected and provided that third parties are not impaired.
- No one may be deprived of his personal freedom nor may such be restricted except in the cases and the manner established by the Constitution and the laws;
- No one may be arrested or detained except by an order issued by a public official expressly authorized by law and after that order is handed out to him legally. Nonetheless, an individual caught in the act of committing a crime may be detained provided that he be brought before the competent judge within the following twenty-four hours.Should the authority order the arrest or detention of an individual, the competent judge must be served, within forty-eight hours following the arrest or detention, and the individual is to be brought before him. By virtue of a well-grounded decision, the judge may extend this period to five days and, in instances where the facts under investigation are described by the law as terrorist acts, such period may be extended to ten days.
- No one may be arrested or detained, subjected to preventive detention or imprisoned, but at his house or in public places intended for this purpose.Those in charge of prisons may not accept anyone who has been arrested or detained, or who is being tried or sentenced to prison, without recording the appropriate order issued by a legally authorized official, in a public register.
No incommunication order may prevent the official in charge of the place of detention from visiting the individual under arrest or detention, subject to trial proceedings or sentenced to prison, held in such place of detention. This officer is obliged, provided it is so requested by the arrested person or detainee, to send a copy of the detention warrant to the competent judge, or to demand that such copy be given to him, or to make an attestation by himself that the individual is being detained, in the event this requirement should have been omitted at the time of the detention.
- Release on bail shall apply unless the detention or preventive imprisonment is considered by the judge as necessary for the investigation or for the security of the victim, or the society. The law shall establish the requirements and formalities for obtaining such release.The appeal of the decision concerning the liberty of the accused for the crimes established in Article 9, will be taken cognizance of by the appropriate superior court, composed entirely of incumbent members. The ruling which approves or grants it will need to be agreed by unanimity. While under freedom, the accused shall always be subjected to surveillance measures of the authority that the law establishes;
- In criminal cases the defendant shall be obliged to testify under oath on acts of his own; nor shall he be obliged to testify against the defendant, his ascendants, descendants, spouse or any other persons who, according to cases or circumstances, should be specified in the law;
- No penalty of confiscation shall be imposed, without prejudice to any seizure in the circumstances determined by law; however, such a penalty will apply with respect to illicit associations.
- The loss of social security rights may not be imposed as a penalty; and
- Once the definitive dismissal or absolutory ruling has been issued, the person subjected to a criminal process or condemned in any instance by a resolution that the Supreme Court declares unjustifiably erroneous or arbitrary, shall have the right to be compensated by the State for the economic and moral loss suffered. The compensation shall be determined judicially in a brief and summary procedure and, in it, the evidence shall be conscientiously analyzed.
- The right to live in an environment free of contamination. It is the duty of the State to ensure that this right is not jeopardized and to promote the preservation of nature.The law may establish specific restrictions on the exercise of certain rights or freedoms to protect the environment;
- The right to protection of health.The State protects the free and equal access to actions for the promotion, protection and recovery of health and for the rehabilitation of the individual.
It will also be responsible for the coordination and control of the health-related actions.
It is a preferential duty of the State to ensure the implementation of health-related actions, whether provided through public or private institutions, in the form and conditions prescribed by law, which may establish compulsory contributions.
Every person shall have the right to choose the health care system that he wishes to join, either State-owned or private.
- The right to education.The objective of education is the complete development of the individual in the various stages of his life.
Parents have the preferential right and duty to educate their children. The State shall provide special protection for the exercise of this right.
It is mandatory for the State to promote preschool education, for which it will finance a free system starting from the middle-lower education level, intended to ensure the access to it and to its higher levels. The second level of transition is mandatory, being a requirement for admission to primary education.
Primary and secondary educations are mandatory. For this purpose, the State must finance a free system, aimed at ensuring access to it to all the population. In the case of secondary education, this system, in accordance with the law, will be extended until the age of 21.
It will also correspond to the State to encourage the development of education at all levels, encourage scientific and technological research, artistic creation and the protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage of the Nation.
It is the duty of the community to contribute to the development and improvement of education;
- Freedom of teaching includes the right to open, organize and maintain educational institutions.The teaching freedom has no limitations but those imposed by morals, good customs, public order and national security.
Officially recognized education shall not be directed towards propagating any partisan political trend.
Parents have the right to choose the educational institution for their children.
A constitutional organic law shall establish the minimum requirements to be required in each of the levels of primary and secondary education and will indicate the objective norms, of general application, that will enable the State to ensure their compliance. The said law, likewise, will establish the requirements for the official recognition of educational institutions at all levels;
- Freedom to express opinions and to inform, without prior censorship, in any form and by any means, notwithstanding the liability for crimes and abuses committed in the exercise of these freedoms, in accordance with the law, which shall be of qualified quorum.In no case may the law establish a state monopoly over the mass media.
Any individual or body corporate offended or unjustly alluded to in a mass medium, has the right to have his declaration or rectification gratuitously disseminated, under the conditions determined by law, by the mass medium having issued such information.
All individuals or bodies corporate shall have the right to establish, edit or maintain newspapers, magazines and periodicals, under the conditions prescribed for by law.
The State, universities and other persons or entities as prescribed by law, may establish, operate and maintain television stations.
There shall be a National Television Council, autonomous and with legal personality, responsible for ensuring the safe operation of this medium of communication. A qualified quorum law shall determine the organization, the functions and powers of the said Council.
The law will regulate a system of qualification for the exhibition of film production;
- The right to assemble peacefully without prior permission and unarmed.Meetings at squares, streets and other public places shall be governed by general police regulations;
- The right to present petitions to the authority, in regard to any matter of public or private interest, without any limitation but to proceed on respectful and appropriate terms;
- The right to associate without prior permission.In order to enjoy legal status, associations must be established in conformity to the law.
No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Associations that are contrary to morals, public order and security of the State are forbidden.
Political parties shall not intervene in activities that are not their own or have any privilege or monopoly of public participation; the list of their members will be registered in the electoral State service, which will keep it, and which will be accessible to members of the respective party; their accounts must be public; their sources of funding shall not come from money, assets, donations, contributions or credits of foreign origin; their statutes must stipulate the rules to ensure effective internal democracy. A constitutional organic law shall establish a system of primary elections that may be used by the said parties for the nomination of candidates to offices of popular election, which results shall be binding for these collectivities, with the exceptions established by the law. Those that are not elected in the primary elections may not be candidates, in that election, to the respective office. A constitutional organic statute shall regulate the other matters that concern them and the sanctions that will be applied for the breach of its provisions, among which their dissolution may be considered. The associations, movements, organizations or groups of persons that pursue or perform activities pertaining to political parties without complying with the above rules are illegal and will be sanctioned in accordance with the aforementioned constitutional organic statute.
The Constitution guarantees political pluralism. Parties, movements or other forms of organization whose objectives, actions or conduct do not respect the basic principles of democratic and constitutional rule, who seek to establish a totalitarian system, as well as those which use violence, advocate or incite it as a method of political action, are unconstitutional. It will correspond to the Constitutional Court to declare this unconstitutionality.
Notwithstanding other sanctions established in this Constitution or the law, the persons who have been involved in the acts which motivate the declaration of unconstitutionality to which the preceding paragraph refers, shall not participate in the formation of other political parties, movements or other forms of political organization, nor shall they opt for positions of popular election or hold the positions listed in numbers 1) to 6) of article 57, for a period of five years as from the decision of the Court. If at that time the persons mentioned should be in possession of the functions or positions indicated, they will lose by the virtue of law.
The persons sanctioned under this provision shall not be subject to rehabilitation during the period prescribed in the preceding paragraph. The duration of the disqualifications referred to in that paragraph shall be doubled in the case of recurrence;
- Freedom to work and its protection.Every person has the right to freely contract and to the free choice of work with a fair retribution.
Any discrimination that is not based on personal skills or capability is forbidden, notwithstanding that the law may require Chilean citizenship or age limits in certain cases.
No type of work may be prohibited, unless it is contrary to morals, safety or public health, or where it is required by the national interests and a law so declares. No law or provision of a public authority may require membership to any organization or entity as a condition for carrying out a particular activity or work, or the disaffiliation to keep it. The law shall determine which professions require a degree or university degree and the conditions to be met to practice them. The professional associations constituted in accordance with the law and which are related to such professions, shall be entitled to hear of the complaints made about ethical conduct of their members. Their decisions may be appealed before the respective Court of Appeals. The professionals that are not associated shall be judged by the courts especially established in the law.
Collective bargaining with the company in which they work is a right of the workers, except in the cases in which the law expressly forbids to negotiate. The law shall establish the procedures for collective negotiation and the adequate procedures to produce a just and peaceful solution in it. The law shall indicate the cases in which collective negotiation must be subjected to mandatory arbitration, which will correspond to special courts of experts which organization and powers will be established in it.
State or municipal officials may not declare go on strike. Neither may the people who work in corporations or enterprises, whatever their nature, purpose or function, that provide services of public utility or which stoppage would seriously endanger the health, the economy of the country, the supply of the population or national security. The law shall establish the procedures for determining the corporations or enterprises whose workers will be subject to the prohibition contained in this paragraph;
- Admission to all public positions and jobs, without any other requirements than those imposed by the Constitution and the laws;
- The right to social security.The laws governing the exercise of this right shall be of qualified quorum.
State action will be directed to ensure the access of all inhabitants to uniform basic benefits, whether they are granted through public or private institutions. The law may establish compulsory contributions.
The state shall supervise the proper exercise of the right to social security;
- The right to unionize in the cases and manner provided by the law. Trade union membership shall always be voluntary.Trade unions enjoy legal personality by the mere fact of registering their statutes and constitutive charters in the form and conditions prescribed by law.
The law shall provide the mechanisms that ensure the autonomy of these organizations. Trade unions may not intervene in partisan political activities;
- The equal distribution of taxes in proportion to income or in the progression or manner that the law establishes, and equal distribution of other public burdens.In no case may the law establish evidently disproportionate or unfair taxes.
The taxes collected whatever their nature will enter into the treasury of the Nation and shall not be earmarked for a specific use.
The law may, however, authorize certain taxes to be assigned for national defense needs. Likewise, it may authorize that those taxes levied on activities or goods of clear local or regional identification can be allocated -within the frameworks that the law establishes- by the regional or communal authorities to finance development works;
- The right to develop any economic activity which is not contrary to morals, public order or national security, abiding legal norms which regulate them.The State and its bodies may develop entrepreneurial activities or participate in them only if a qualified quorum law authorizes it. In that case, those activities shall be subject to the ordinary legislation applicable to individuals, notwithstanding the exceptions that, for justifiable reasons, the law establishes, which shall be, likewise, of qualified quorum.
- The non-arbitrary discrimination treatment to be granted by the State and its bodies in economic affairs.Only by virtue of a law, and providing that it does not imply the said discrimination, certain direct or indirect benefits in favor of any sector, activity or geographical zone may be authorized, or special encumbrances that affect one or the others may be established. In the case of franchises or indirect benefits, the estimated cost of these shall be included annually in the Budget Law;
- Freedom to acquire property over all kinds of goods, except for those which nature has made common to all men or which should belong to the Nation as a whole and the law declares so. The aforementioned is notwithstanding of what is set forth in other provisions of this Constitution.A qualified quorum law -and when required by the national interest- may establish limitations or requirements for acquiring property over some goods;
- The right of ownership in its diverse species of all kinds of tangible or intangible goods.Only the law can set forth the mode of acquiring property, of using, enjoying and disposing of it as well as the limitations and obligations that derive from its social function. This includes all that the general interests of the Nation, national security, the public utilities and health and the preservation of the environment, require.
No one can, in any case, be deprived of his property, the goods affected or any of the essential attributes or powers of the domain, but by virtue of a general or special law that authorizes a taking for public utility or national interest, qualified by the legislator. The expropriated may challenge the legality of the taking act before the ordinary courts and shall always have the right to be compensated for the property damage actually caused, which will be determined by agreement or by a ruling issued in accordance with the law by the said courts.
In the absence of an agreement, the compensation shall be paid in cash.
The material possession of the expropriated property shall take place upon payment of total compensation, which, in the absence of an agreement, shall be provisionally determined by experts in the manner provided by the law. In case there is a complaint regarding legal basis of the taking, the judge may, on the merits of the information adduced, order the suspension of the material possession.
The State has absolute, exclusive, inalienable and imprescriptible domain of all mines, including guano deposits [covaderas], metalliferous sands, salt mines, coal and hydrocarbon deposits and other fossil substances, with the exception of superficial clays, notwithstanding the property of natural or legal persons over the terrains in which they may be contained. Surface properties are subject to the obligations and limitations established by law to facilitate exploration, exploitation and processing of such mines.
The law is to determine what substances of those referred to in the preceding paragraph, excepting liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons, may be subject to exploration or exploitation concessions. These concessions shall always be constituted by a judicial decision and will have the duration, will confer the rights and impose the obligations that the law expresses, which shall have the character of constitutional organic. The mining concession required the owner to undertake the necessary activity to satisfy the public interest that justifies its granting. The protection legal frame shall be established by the said law, and will tend directly or indirectly to obtain the fulfillment of that obligation and will contemplate the grounds for revocation in the event of nonfulfillment or simple extinguishment of domain over the concession. In any case, the said grounds and its effects must be established at the time of granting the concession.
It will be the sole jurisdiction of the ordinary courts to declare the extinction of such concessions. Disputes concerning the expiration or termination of ownership of the concession will be settled by them; and, in the case of expiration, the affected party may request from the judiciary the declaration of the subsistence of its right.
The ownership of the holder over its mining concession is protected by the constitutional guarantee referred to in this number.
The exploration, exploitation or development of deposits containing substances not susceptible to concession, may be implemented directly by the State or its enterprises, or by means of administrative concessions or special operation contracts of operation, with the requirements and under the conditions that the President of the Republic determines, in each case, by a supreme decree. This rule also applies to deposits of any kinds existing in sea waters subject to national jurisdiction and those located, in whole or in part, in zones that, according to law, are of importance to national security. The President of the Republic may, at any time, without express cause and with the compensation that is due, terminate the administrative concessions or contracts of operation in relation to the exploitation in zones declared of importance to national security.
The rights of individuals over the waters, recognized or constituted in accordance with the law, will grant their holders the property over them;
- The freedom to create and disseminate the arts, as well as the right of the author over his intellectual and artistic creations of any kind, for the time stipulated by the law and that shall not be inferior to the life of the holder.The right of the author includes the property of the works and other rights, such as authorship, the edition and the integrity of the work, all in accordance with the law.
The industrial property over invention patents, trademarks, models, technological processes or similar creations are guaranteed for as long as the law establishes.
The property of the intellectual and artistic creations and the industrial property shall be governed by what is prescribed in the second, third, fourth and fifth paragraphs of the preceding number; and
- The assurance that the legal precepts which, by mandate of the Constitutions, regulate or complement the constitutional guarantees therein or which should limit them in the cases authorized by the Constitution, shall not affect the rights in their essence, nor impose conditions, taxes or requirements which may prevent their free exercise.
ARTICLE 20
He who should, due to arbitrary or illegal acts or omissions suffers deprivation, disruption or threat in the legitimate exercise of the rights and guaranties established in article 19, number 1, 2, 3 fifth paragraph, 4, 5, 6, 9 final paragraph, 11, 12 ,13, 15, 16 in what is relative to the freedom to work and the right to free choice and freedom to contract, and what is set out in the fourth paragraph, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 may personally, or through anyone on his behalf, resort to the respective Court of Appeals, which shall immediately take the measures it deems necessary to restore the rule of law and ensure the due protection of the affected party, notwithstanding the other rights that he may assert before the authority or the corresponding courts.
Likewise, the remedy of protection will also proceed in the case of number 8 of article 19, when the right to live in a pollution-free environment is affected by an unlawful act or omission attributable to a specific authority or person.
ARTICLE 21
Every individual who should be found arrested, detained or imprisoned in violation of what is established in the Constitution or the laws, may concur personally, or through anyone on his behalf, to the court established by the law, so that it orders that the legal formalities be complied with an that it immediately adopts the providences it deems necessary to restore the rule of law and ensure due protection of the affected party.
This court may require the individual to be brought into its presence and its decree will be precisely obeyed by all of those responsible of prisons or detention centers. Instructed of the facts, it will decree his immediate release or will repair the legal defects or will put the individual at the disposition of the competent judge, proceeding briefly and summarily, and correcting by itself such defects or reporting them to whom it corresponds to correct them.
The same remedy, and in equal form, may be filed on behalf of any person who illegally suffers any deprivation, disruption or threat to his right to personal freedom and individual security. The respective court will dictate in those cases the measures outlined in the preceding paragraphs that it deems necessary to restore the rule of law and to ensure due protection of the affected party.
ARTICLE 22
Every inhabitant of the Republic owes respect to Chile and its national emblems.
Chileans have the fundamental duty to honor the homeland, to defend its sovereignty and to contribute to preserve the national security and core values of the Chilean tradition.
Military service and other personal charges that the law imposes are obligatory in the terms and forms established in it.
Chileans able to bear arms must be inscribed in the Military Registers, if they are not legally exempted.
ARTICLE 23
Intermediate groups of the community and their leaders who misuse the autonomy that the Constitutions recognizes to them, unduly intervening in activities unrelated to their specific objectives, shall be punished in accordance with law. Superior directive positions of union organizations are incompatible with national and regional superior directive positions of political parties.
The law shall establish the punishments that it will correspond to apply to union leaders who participate in partisan political activities and to the leaders of political parties that interfere in the functioning of union organizations and the other intermediate groups that the law indicates.
