On April 4, President Laurentino Cortizo returned Bill No. 638 to the National Assembly, which regulates the exercise of the historian profession, without sanctioning it because, among other reasons, the creation of the Technical Council of Historians constitutes a barrier to the discipline development.
According to Cortizo, after analyzing the content of that project, “I do not find reasons of a technical nature that support the creation of a Technical Council of Historians that grants suitability for the exercise of the profession of historian.”
He added that history is a discipline that feeds on the study and investigation of historical sources that lead to an understanding of the past, “a scenario in which adding the requirement of nationality would only serve to impose a barrier that would prevent non-national historians from contributing to the knowledge of history.
Cortizo made that decision after consulting with officials from the Ministries of Culture and Education, the University of Panama, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the Panama Visitors Center and the Society of Friends of the Afro-Antillean Museum of Panama.
“The knowledge, rescue, study and dissemination of national and universal history must be seen as a right of the population, which should not be limited to the recognition of the suitability of a group of professionals graduated from national or foreign universities,” said Cortizo.
Cortizo, in the note that he sent to the deputy president of the National Assembly, Crispiano Adames, in which he communicated his decision, emphasized that ordering that national history museums and archives must have a suitable historian, as defined in this legislative proposal , warns against the possibility that they can hire qualified historians.
“But without suitability, even if they are experts and scholars of history, have carried out research and publications, are professors at prestigious universities or have given lectures at international forums,” he added.
The National Assembly approved the bill No. 638 last February in the third debate.
On March 4, it was learned that the Network of Museums and Visitor Centers of Panama asked Cortizo to veto part of the bill since it was approved without consultation and in a hurry by the National Assembly.
In a note dated March 2, the Network specifically urges the president to veto Article 11, which establishes that all museums must hire a suitable plant historian.
