Costa Rica, Constitutions

The basic constitutional framework of Costa Rica has been established by documents of 1825, 1844 (as amended in 1847 and 1848), 1871, and 1949. However, constitutions of one sort or another were also written or rewritten in 1823, 1824, 1841, 1847, 1848, 1859, 1869, and 1917. Moreover, the existence of a Central American Federation Constitution of 1824 (amended in 1835) makes Costa Rican constitutional authority problematic until the 1840s at the very least. Finally, the earliest constitutional precedents date from both the Cortes of Cádiz experiment of 1812 and the Independence-era pacts and statutes of 1821–1823; major codifications of Costa Rican civil law were undertaken in 1841 and 1886.

Political participation as voter, elector, or officeholder was severely limited by property, literacy, and gender qualifications in all constitutions prior to 1949. However, major electoral changes were made somewhat earlier, with direct elections after 1913, the secret ballot in 1928, an increasingly nonpartisan electoral machinery after the 1930s, a much more inclusive literacy and property qualification in practice after the 1890s, and the vote for women, finally, in 1949. While pre-1870 experiments with dual-chamber assemblies were undertaken, the Chamber of Deputies, or Assembly, legislated while a Senate was a more advisory, quasi-judicial body. However, the single-assembly model has long dominated. In this, as in the fairly rigid nineteenth-century stance on indirect elections with stiff requirements for a limited electorate, the influence of the Spanish constitutionalism of Cádiz would appear to be more directly relevant than the North American model of the time.

According to the Costa Rican authority Hernán G. Peralta, the constitutional tradition draws most heavily upon the 1821 "Pacto de Concordia," the 1825 Ley Fundamental, and the 1871 and the 1949 constitutions. The sequential relationship of Costa Rican constitutions can be summarized as follows:

1. The independence-related Pacto de Concordia (also Pacto Social Interino; 1 December 1821), reformed by political statutes of 17 March and 16 May 1823
2. The Central American Federation Constitution of 1824 (amended in 1835, largely irrelevant after 1838)
3. As a consequence of the 1824 document, the Ley Fundamental of 25 January 1825, formally abrogated by the Ley de Bases y Garantías of 1841
4. The Constitution of 9 April 1844, which reinstated much of the 1825 law, amended in various ways by new constitutions of 10 February 1847, 30 November 1848, 26 December 1859, and 15 April 1869
5. The Constitution of 7 December 1871, amended by its promulgator, General Tomás Guardia, in 1882, and suspended by the Tinoco dictatorship of 1917–1919
6. The Constitution of 7 November 1949, which continues in force.

The constitutional tradition in Costa Rica has, in general, opposed Central American union tendencies regardless of the local attitudes toward centralization or decentralization of government. Until the 1871 Constitution, the legislative branch held most power with various schemes to restrain the executive, particularly after dictatorships led by Braulio Carrillo (1838–1842) and Juan Rafael Mora (1859).

Early in independent national life the supremacy of the legislative branch was extreme and a thin disguise for the power of municipal, localist authorities who doubled as deputies in early national assemblies. Carrillo defeated the most extreme of such tendencies—the rotation of the site of the capital—with the 1841 Ley de Bases y Garantías, which abrogated the 1825 Constitution. When Mora amassed great power in the late 1850s, in part as a consequence of his immense popularity as the victor over William Walker in Nicaragua, constitutional changes were again instituted to annul his reelection (1859) and restrain like-minded future executives. With the revolt led by Guardia Gutiérrez in 1870, the pendulum swung sharply back toward presidentialism and against the rule of family-based cliques in the Assembly. Although Guardia briefly abrogated the 1871 Constitution as dictator (1877–1882), he reinstated the document, along with the total elimination of the death penalty, shortly before his death in 1882.

The framework of the 1871 Constitution survived until the civil war of 1948 and the new Constitution of 1949, although some major changes were made in the interim. The preeminence of the executive was clear throughout the early twentieth century, in regimes led by such figures as three-time president Ricardo Jiménez, by Cleto González, and by León Cortés, as well as in the controversial actions of president Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia leading up to the conflict of 1948.

Only once was the Constitution of 1871 challenged directly prior to 1948: by the military coup and dictatorship of the Tinoco brothers, Federico and José Joaquín, in 1917. Their own constitution was short-lived, being abrogated in favor of the 1871 document with their downfall in 1919.

The document drawn up by the victors of 1948 remains in force today. While it was still largely presidentialist, efforts were made to avoid the worst of the earlier excesses. While no truly radical strengthening of the Assembly or the municipalities was attempted, each was recognized as an important seat of power. As a counterbalance to the perceived ills of presidentialism, the 1949 Constitution established the new category of "autonomous" or "decentralized" institutions in the public sector. The social security health system, the electrical and telecommunications services, and the national insurance institute, among others, were to be administered nonpartisanly, independent of executive branch control. While such control has been realized only partially, these agencies have become the largest employers and interest groups in the nation and, arguably, have provided an element of restraint on partisanship from the executive branch.

The 1949 Constitution also established a number of new departures. The social function of property and the need for state intervention in the economy were changes from earlier Liberal orthodoxy. As part of this thrust the banks were nationalized and a special one-time 10 percent tax on capital was levied to provide for reconstruction. The abolition of a standing army has often been credited to the authors of the 1949 Constitution, although professional military forces were few in number and had exerted little influence as a separate interest group for a long time. Most military figures leading revolts in the past—against Mora in 1859, by Guardia in 1871, or by the Tinoco brothers in 1917—did so at the behest of civilian forces against unpopular regimes. They acted as barracks commanders within an elite political contest with few troops and little in the way of institutional interests to defend.

Most important of the constitutional changes brought about in 1949 are the enfranchisement of women and the elimination of illiteracy and property qualifications for the vote. Likewise, the power of the independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal was strengthened significantly, as a consequence of the alleged fraud of 1948. The very visible success of this agency since then has been built upon similar, incremental reforms made since the 1920s, in reaction to the evident manipulation of votes by executives under the 1871 Constitution. Presidential reelection was also prohibited, putting to rest another of the means by which the executive controlled votes. This has led to a basically two-party or two-coalition alternation in power since 1948. Modern constitutional conflicts have been infrequent, although on the negative side, the political rights of those who lost in 1948 were denied them for some time thereafter. Nevertheless, perhaps the most serious and recurrent weakness of Costa Rican constitutionalism prior to 1948—the manipulation of electoral machinery and vote counting—appears to have been resolved by the 1949 Constitution.

See alsoCentral America, Constitution of 1824 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

On Costa Rican constitutionalism the authority is Hernán G. Peralta, Las constituciones de Costa Rica (1962). Also useful is Jorge Sáenz Carbonell, El despertar constitucional de Costa Rica (1985). On the 1949 Constitution, see Oscar Aguillar Bulgarelli, La constitucion de 1949: Antecedentes y proyecciones (1973). On the disruptions of constitutional rule, see Rafael Orbregón Loría, Conflictos militares y políticos de Costa Rica (1951); and on the legislature, his El poder legislativo en Costa Rica (1966). On the question of suffrage, see Samuel Z. Stone, La dinastía de los conquistadores (1975), and Cleto González Víquez, El sufragio en Costa Rica ante la historia y la legislacíon, 2d ed. (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Trejos, Gerardo, and Hubert May. Constitución y democracia costarricense. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Juricentro, 2001.

Yashar, Deborah J. Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala, 1870s–1950s. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.

                               Lowell Gudmundson