More than a thousand lawyers, graduates in Legal and Social Sciences, and graduates of the different Faculties of Law in the country, gathered in the group Lawyers for Approval, supported that option in a letter for the plebiscite on September 4. They stressed that it is a “decisive” step in strengthening democracy and that it will allow, over time, to improve “our daily lives.”
“With the conviction that it is the best for Chile, we call on citizens to give way to a new Constitution, democratic, equal and in accordance with the new reality of our country, the region and the world,” they said in the letter, which has 1,160 signatories.
They pointed out that the proposal for a new Magna Carta “represents a decisive step in strengthening democracy, in the necessary modernization of the organs of the State, and in the beginning of a path of reunion and national unity based on social justice, equity, participation, probity, parity, inclusion and unrestricted respect for human rights in all their dimensions”.
Among the aspects highlighted by the signatories, is the end of the subsidiary State, “which gives way to a Social State of Law, which guarantees that all people have the possibility of developing personally and as a community based on a public framework at the service of it”.
“Democracy, institutional stability and social peace demand an end to the profound inequities and injustices sustained in the last 40 years, and the text of the New Constitution points precisely in this direction,” they added.
Likewise, they indicated that “the new text contemplates an important catalog of social rights, which are the material condition of freedom. We are free to choose when we all have a basic floor and the necessary benefits to develop our lives.”
In this regard, they reveal that the proposal enshrines rights not considered in the current Constitution, such as access to water and its sanitation; decent and adequate housing; freedom of association, union ownership and the right to strike; comprehensive health and wellness; culture; the sport; dignified old age; reproductive self-determination; and care and its recognition as work, among others.
Lastly, they pointed out that “the new Constitution is not a magic recipe that can, overnight, resolve each and every one of the problems that afflict Chileans; however, we reiterate our conviction that keeping The current Constitution will only deepen the injustices and inequities that hit us today”.
“The constitutional proposal that we call for approval is a solid and hopeful beginning that will allow our reality and our daily lives to improve over time,” they added.
