The Expert Commission of the new constituent process chose this Monday -by means of a previous agreement- Veronica Undurraga (PPS) already Sebastian Soto (Evópoli quota) as president and vice president of the instance, respectively. The Commission began its first session today.
Undurraga is a lawyer and PhD in Law from the University of Chile. Likewise, she is a tenured professor at the Adolfo Ibáñez University.
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Soto is a lawyer from the Catholic University and a Doctor of Law from the University of Chile. He was head of the Legislative Legal Division of the Segpres between 2010 and 2014, and in 2019 he was part of the technical team of the Agreement for Peace.
For his part, Juan Jose Ossa (RN) will chair the Political System subcommittee; Catherine Salem (RN) that of Jurisdictional Function; Maximo Pavez (UDI) that of Principles, Civil and Political Rights; and Alejandra Krauss (DC) that of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights.
Hernan Larrain He was in charge of presiding over the beginning of the first session of the Expert Commission. This, as he is the oldest member of the instance.
- Expert Commission sings the national anthem.
The Expert Commission is one of the three organs of the new constituent process. Its function is to draft a draft that will serve as the basis for the Constitutional Council (which will be made up of elected people).
The instance is made up of 24 people: 12 appointed by the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies and 12 by the Senate.
Undurraga: “We are here to serve with deeds and not with words”
After being elected as president, Verónica Undurraga gave a speech. “We are here to serve with deeds and not with words, so I will try to keep it short and simple. We are 24 men and women who have been entrusted by their representatives in Congress with a very specific task and for a limited time: to propose to you, citizens, a preliminary draft of the Constitution within a period of three months”,
“These people were chosen as experts, and we are experts in a sense: we have been working on constitutional issues for years. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is only part of the knowledge that must be brought to this process” he went on.
“The real people who are experts in knowing the needs of our girls and boys, of the elderly, of what is needed to carry out a business, of those who need health care (…) these people are each one of you (citizens)”, he added.
Rest of the process
The Expert Commission will work for three months, a period in which it will prepare a constitutional draft. Subsequently, its members will join the Constitutional Council.
The Constitutional Council will be made up of 50 people elected by popular vote. The election will be on Sunday, May 7. The instance will run for five months.
Finally, the exit plebiscite will be held on Sunday, December 17.
Elizalde: “Dialogue must be inclusive”
The presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, alvaro elizalde (PS) and Vlado Mirosevic (PL), respectively, met this Monday with the Expert Commission, prior to their installation. After the meeting, Elizalde urged that the “dialogue must be inclusive.”
“We have spent many decades, and this has a consequence with the democratic rupture, that there has been no capacity to establish a space of understanding, with a projection of the future, in which despite our legitimate differences we all consider ourselves part of the same project that is called Chile” , said the helmsman of the Senate at a press point.
“I think that the greatest challenge exists on the part of the political and social actors, and particularly the political actors. I think we have to take a lesson, and therefore the dialogue must be an inclusive dialogue, or what is synonymous, a dialogue inclusive, because that is what allows us to arrive at a good Constitution for the country,” he added.
