Constitution of the Republic of Peru, 1933

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CONSTITUTION
OF THE
REPUBLIC OF PERU
( April 9, 1933 )

TITLE I
The State, Territory, and Nationality

Art. 1. Peru is a democratic republic.

The power of the State emanates from the people and is exercised by officials with the limitations which the constitution and the laws establish.

Art. 2. The State is one and indivisible.

Art. 3. The territory of the State is inalienable.

Art. 4. Persons born in the territory of the Republic are Peruvians. The children of a Peruvian father or mother, whatever may have been the place of their birth, provided they are domiciled in the Republic or register themselves in the civil register or in the respective consulate, are also Peruvians. It is presumed that minors who are resident in the national territory, and are the children of unknown parents, have been born in Peru.

Art. 5. Adult aliens domiciled in the Republic for more than two consecutive years who renounce their nationality may be naturalized. Naturalization is granted according to the law and has only individual effect.

Their nationality of origin is not lost by persons born in Spanish territory who become naturalized Peruvians according to the procedure and requisites laid down by law and in conformity with the provisions of the treaty which is concluded with the Spanish Republic on the basis of reciprocity.

Art. 6. A foreign woman married to a Peruvian acquires the nationality of her husband. A Peruvian woman married to a foreigner retains Peruvian nationality unless it is expressly renounced.

Art. 7. Peruvian nationality is lost:

(1) By entering the armed service of a foreign power without the permission of Congress, or by accepting employment from another State which involves the exercise of authority or jurisdiction; and

(2) By acquiring foreign nationality. The case of reciprocity contemplated in the second paragraph of Article 5 is excepted.

TITLE II
Constitutional Guarantees

Chapter I
National and Social Guarantees

Art. 8. Only for the public service may the law create, alter, or abolish taxes, and exempt from the payment thereof, wholly or in part.

There are no personal privileges as regards taxes.

Art. 9. The general budget determines annually the revenues and expenditures of the Republic. The law regulates the preparation, approval, and execution of the general budget. In the case of any sum collected or employed contrary to law, the person ordering the illegal collection or expenditure shall be held responsible. The person carrying the order into effect shall also be held responsible if he does not prove his innocence.

Immediate publication of the budgets and of the accounts of revenues and expenditures of all the branches of the public powers is obligatory, those who fail to comply being held responsible.

Art. 10. A special department, the functions of which shall be subject to the law, shall control the execution of the general budget of the Republic and the activities of agencies which collect or administer revenue or property of the State. The head of the department shall be appointed by the President of the Republic in agreement with the Council of Ministers. The law shall specify his duties.

Art. 11. The State guarantees the payment of the public debt contracted in conformity with the Constitution and the laws.

Art. 12. The law determines the monetary system of the Republic.

The issue of banknotes is the privilege of the State, which exercises it through a national central banking institution entrusted with the regulation of the currency.

Art. 13. A special department, the functions of which shall be determined by law, shall exercise, on behalf of the State, the supervision of banking enterprises.

Art. 14. The State shall maintain by the means at its disposal the stability of the currency and the free conversion of banknotes. Only in exceptional cases, at the request of the Executive Power and with the assent of the agency entrusted with the regulation of the currency and the head of the department supervising banking enterprises, shall Congress have the power to pass a law decreeing temporary non-conversion of banknotes.

Art. 15. National loans must be authorized or approved by law fixing the conditions and indicating the objects for which they are to be employed, which must be of a reproductive character or connected with national defense.

Art. 16. Industrial and commercial monopolies and cornering of the market are prohibited. The law shall fix the penalties to be imposed on offenders. Only the law may establish state monopolies and exclusive privileges solely in the national interest.

Art. 17. Commercial companies, national or foreign, are subject, without restrictions, to the laws of the Republic. In every state contract with foreigners, or in the concessions which grant them in the latters' favor, it must be expressly stated that they will submit to the laws and courts of the Republic and renounce all diplomatic claims.

Art. 18. No person may receive more than one salary or emolument from the State, whatever be his functions or post, with the exception of one more for teaching. Salaries or emoluments paid by local corporations or by societies subordinate in any form to the Executive Power are included in this prohibition.

Art. 19. Acts of persons who usurp public functions and posts conferred without the requesites laid down by the Constitution and the laws are null and void.

Art. 20. A person occupying a public post is directly and immediately responsible for his acts in the exercise of his functions. The law shall determine the manner of making this responsibility effective. The Ministry of Justice is obligated to demand compliance with the provisions of this article.

Art. 21. No person may exercise public functions designated in the Constitution without taking an oath to fulfill them.

Art. 22. Every official or public servant, civil or military, possessing property or income independent of his emoluments as such, is obliged expressly and specifically to declare them, in the manner determined by law.

Art. 23. The Constitution and the laws afford protection to and carry obligations equally for all the inhabitants of the Republic. It shall be possible to issue special laws because the nature of things so demands, but not because of the difference of persons.

Art. 24. No one is obliged to do what the law does not demand, nor may he be prevented from doing what it does not forbid.

Art. 25. No law has retroactive force or effect.

Art. 26. Claims may be submitted to Congress for infringements of the Constitution.

Art. 27. The State recognizes freedom of association and of contract. The conditions of their exercises are governed by law.

Art. 28. The law shall establish the maximum interest for loans of money. Every agreement to the contrary is null and void. Those who infringe this rule shall be punished.

Art. 29. Property is inviolable, whether it be material, intellectual, literay, or aristic. No one may be deprived of his own except for reason or public utility legally proven and after appraised compensation.

Art. 30. The State guarantees and protects the rights of authors and inventors. The law shall regulate their exercise.

Art. 31. Property, whoever may be the owner, is governed exclusively by the laws of the Republic, and is subject to the taxes, charges, and limitations established by them.

Art. 32. Foreigners, as regards property, are in the same condition as Peruvians, without being able in any case to invoke an exceptional position in this respect or have recourse to diplomatic claims.

Art. 33. Public things, the use of which is for all, such as rivers, lakes, and public roads, are not objects of private property.

Art. 34. Property must be used in harmony with social interests. The law shall fix the limitations and characteristics of the right of ownership of property.

Art. 35. The law may, for reasons of national interest, establish special restrictions and prohibitions for acquiring and transferring determined classes of property, whether this be by its nature, its condition, or its location in the territory.

Art. 36. Within fifty kilometers of the frontiers, foreigners may not acquire or possess, under any title, lands, waters, mines, or fuels directly or indirectly, individually or collectively, under pain of loss, to the benefit of the State, of the acquired property, except in the case of national necessity declared by express law.

Art. 37. Mines, lands, forests, waters, and, in general, all natural sources of wealth belong to the State, excepting legally acquired rights. This law shall fix the conditions of their utilization by the State, or of their concession, in ownership or usufruct, to private persons.

Art. 38. The State may, by virtue of a law, take over or nationalize land, sea, river, lake, and aerial transport, or other public services in private ownership, after compensation and in conformity with the laws in force.

Art. 39. The rates for passages and freights shall, without any exception, be fixed and collected solely in national currency.

Art. 40. The State recognizes the freedom of commerce and industry.

The law shall indicate the requirements to which its exercise is subject and the guarantees accorded to it. When required by public security or necessity, the law may lay down limitations or reservations to the said exercise, or authorize the Executive Power to lay them down without in any case such restrictions having a personal or confiscatory character.

Art. 41. The State shall receive part of the profits of mining enterprises, in the amount and proportion which the law shall necessarily determine.

Art. 42. The State guarantees the freedom of work. Any profession, industry, or occupation which is not contrary to morals, health, or public security may be exercised freely.

Art. 43. The State shall enact a law governing the collective labor contract.

Art. 44. Any stipulation in a labor contract which restricts the exercise of civil, political, and social rights is prohibited.

Art. 45. The State shall favor a system of participation by employees and workers in the profits of enterprises, and shall legislate upon the other aspects of relations between the former and the latter and upon the protection of employees and workers in general.

Art. 46. The State shall legislate upon the general organization and the securities of industrial labor, and upon the guarantees therein of life, health, and hygiene. The law shall fix the maximum conditions of labor, the compensation for the length of services rendered and for accidents, as well as minimum salaries in relation to the age, sex, nature of work, and conditions and requirements in the various regions of the country.

Art. 47. The State shall favor the preservation and extension of medium and small rural property, and may by means of a law and on payment of compensation, expropriate lands in private ownership, especially those which are not worked, in order to subdivide them or transfer them under the conditions which the law fixes.

Art. 48. The law shall establish a system of social security for the economic consequences of unemployment, age, illness, disability, and death; and shall encourage institutions of social solidarity, savings and insurance establishments, and cooperatives.

Art. 49. In extraordinary circumstances of social necessity, laws may be passed, or the Executive Power may be authorized to adopt measures tending to reduce the cost of living.

Goods shall not be expropriated in any of these cases without due compensation.

Art. 50. The State is charged with the supervision of public health and the care of private health, and shall pass laws providing for the control of hygiene and health as may be necessary, and also those which promote the physical, moral, and social improvement of the population.

Art. 51. Marriage, the family, and maternity are under the protection of the law.

Art. 52. It is the primary duty of the State to protect the physical, mental, and moral health of infants. The State defends the right of the child to home life, education, vocational guidance, and ample assistance when it finds itself abandoned, ill, or in misfortune. The State shall entrust the fulfilment of the provisions of this article to adequate technical organizations.

Art. 53. The State does not recognize the legal existence of political parties of international organization. Persons who belong to such may not fulfill any public function.

Art. 54. The death penalty shall be imposed for crimes of treason to the country and adjudged murder, and for all crimes which the law specifies.

Chapter II
Individual Guarantees

Art. 55. No one may be obliged to perform personal labor without his free consent and without due recompense.

Art. 56. No one may be detained except on a written warrant, with a reason assigned, from the competent judge or from the authorities entrusted with the preservation of public order, except in cases of flagrante delicto, and in any event the detained person must be brought, within twenty-four hours or in the interval of time allowed for distance, before the proper court, which shall order his liberty, or issue a warrant of imprisonment within the period which the law indicates.

Art. 57. No one shall be convicted for an act or omission which, at the time it was committed, is not described in the law in an express and unequivocal manner as a punishable offense, nor shall he be judged except by the courts which the laws establish. Any declaration obtained by violence is devoid of value.

The penalty of confiscation of property may not be imposed.

Art. 58. There is no detention for debt.

Art. 59. Freedom of conscience and belief is inviolable.

No one shall be persecuted on account of his ideas.

Art. 60. The right of petition may be exercised individually or collectively. The armed forces may not exercise it.

Art. 61. The home is inviolable. It may not be entered without the prior production of a written warrant, with a reason assigned, from the judge or competent authority.

Art. 62. All persons have the right to assemble peacefully without arms and without compromising public order. The law shall regulate the exercise of the right of assembly.

Art. 63. The State guarantees freedom of the press. All have the right freely to utter their ideas and opinions by means of the press or by any other method of dissemination, but with the responsibility which the law establishes. This responsibility appertains to the author and the publisher of a punishable publication, who shall be jointly responsible for the indemnification due to the person injured.

Art. 64. The regular courts are competent to deal with press offenses.

Art. 65. Public performances are subject to censorship.

Art. 66. Correspondence is inviolable. Letters and private papers may not be seized, intercepted, or searched, except by judicial authority, in the cases and in the manner established by law.

Letters and private papers violated or abstracted have no effect in courts of law.

Art. 67. The right to enter, cross, and leave the country is free, within the limitations which are established by penal, sanitary, and aliens laws.

Art. 68. No one may be banished from the territory of the Republic, nor removed from his place of residence, except by a writ of sentence or by application of the aliens law.

Art. 69. All the individual and social rights recognized by the Constitution admit of the action of habeas corpus.

Art. 70. When necessary for the security of the State, the Executive Power may totally or partially suspend the guarantees declared in Articles 56, 61, 62, 67, and 68 throughout or in part of the national territory. If the suspension of guarantees is decreed while Congress is in session, the Executive Power shall immediately inform it thereof.

The period of the suspension of guarantees shall not exceed thirty days. Any extension requires a new decree.

The law shall determine the rights of the Executive Power during the suspension of guarantees.

TITLE III
Education

Art. 71. The technical direction of education devolves on the State.

Art. 72. Elementary instruction is obligatory and free.

Art. 73. There shall be at least one school in every place where the school-going population amounts to thirty people.

Complete elementary instruction shall be given in every provincial and district capital.

Art. 74. Schools functioning in industrial, agricultural, or mining centers shall be maintained by the respective proprietors or enterprises.

Art. 75. The State promotes education in its secondary and superior grades, with a tendency to free education.

Art. 76. In each department there shall be at least one school of an industrial scope.

Art. 77. The State promotes the technical education of workers.

Art. 78. The State promotes and contributes to the maintenance of preschool and postschool education, and of schools for backward and abnormal children.

Art. 79. The moral and civic education of the child is obligatory, and shall necessarily be inspired by national aggrandizement and human solidarity.

Art. 80. The State guarantees the freedom of the pressorate.

Art. 81. Teaching is a public career and gives right to the emoluments which the law fixes.

Art. 82. Archaelogical, artistic, and historic treasures are under the guardianship of the State.

Art. 83. The law shall indicate the minimum amount of revenue destined for the maintenance and diffusion of education and the proportion by which it must be increased annually.

TITLE IV
Citizenship and Suffrage

Art. 84. Citizens are Peruvian men and women of adult age, married persons over eighteen years and those who are emancipated.

Art. 85. The exercise of citizenship is suspended:

1. By physical or mental incapacity; and
2. By serving a sentence which imposes a penalty of deprivation of liberty.

Art. 86. The right of suffrage is enjoyed by citizens who know how to read and write.

Art. 87. Persons may not vote if their exercise of citizenship has been suspended, nor may the members of the armed forces while they are in the service. There are no other disqualifications.

Art. 88. The electoral power is autonomous. The register is permanent.

Registration and voting are obligatory for citizens until the age of sixty, and optional beyond that age.

The vote is secret.

The system of elections shall give representation to minorities, with a tendency to proportionality.

TITLE V
The Legislative Power

Art. 89. Congress is composed of a Chamber of Deputies, elected by direct suffrage, and a functional Senate.

Art. 90. The Deputies and Senators are elected in the manner and by the electoral circumscriptions which the law determines.

Art. 91. The number of Deputies and Senators shall be fixed by law.

Art. 92. The Deputies and Senators represent the nation and are not subject to any imperative mandate.

Art. 93. The Chamber of Deputies is elected for a term of six years, and is renewed in full at the expiration of its mandate.

Art. 94. The Senate is elected for a term of six years, and is renewed in full upon the termination of its mandate, pending the organization of the functional Senate.

Art. 95. The Senators and Deputies elected to fill vacancies which occur shall conclude the term commenced by the Deputy or Senator whom they replace.

Art. 96. The legislative mandate cannot be renounced, except in the case of reelection. The resignation shall be presented to the Chamber in question.

Art. 97. The Executive Power convokes general elections for the President of the Republic and Deputies, and for the renewal of the senatorial thirds.

It also convokes by-elections to fill vacancies produced during the legislative period in the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies, after a declaration of the vacancy and the agreement of the Chamber in question.

If the Executive Power does not make the convocations on the dates or within the periods which the law specifies, they shall be made, as the case may be, by the President of Congress for general elections and by the President of each Chamber for by-elections.

Act. 98. To be a deputy it is necessary to be a Peruvian by birth, to enjoy the right of suffrage, to have completed twenty-five years of age, and to be a native of the department to which the electoral circumscription belongs or to have had three years' continuous residence therein.

To be a Senator it is necessary to be a Peruvian by birth, to enjoy the right of suffrage, and have completed thirty-five years of age.

Art. 99. The following persons are not eligible to be deputies or Senators, if they have not left their posts six months before the election:

(1) The President of the Republic, the Ministers of State and the Prefects, Subprefects, and Governors;
(2) Members of the Judicial Power;
(3) Members of the Departmental Councils or of the Municipal Councils of the electoral circumscription in question; and
(4) Members of the armed forces who are in the service, public employees directly removable by the Executive Power, those of the departmental or municipal councils, public benevolent societies and institutions or corporations which are in any manner subordinate to this Power and those which are subject to its veto.

Art. 100. Members of the clergy are likewise not eligible to be Deputies or Senators.

Art. 101. There is incompatibility between the legislative mandate and any public office, whether of national, departmental, or municipal administration. Included in this incompatibility are the employees of Public Charitable Societies, the Departmental or Municipal Councils, and of corporations in any manner subordinate to the Executive Power.

Art. 102. The law shall fix the incompatibility between the legislative mandate and the posts of manager, attorney, promoter, or lawyer of foreign or national companies which have contracts with the State, exploit natural sources of production, or administer revenues or public services; or of institutions in which the Executive Power intervenes directly or indirectly.

Art. 103. The legislative mandate is vacated ipso facto by accepting any employment, post, or benefice the appointment to which, or the nomination or proposal to which, devolves on the Executive Power. The post of Minister of State is excepted. There are also excepted posts of extraordinary commissions of an international character, with the approval of the Chamber in question, without, in this case, the Deputy or Senator on commission being able to prolong his absence for more than a year. There may be accepted, in the same manner, unrenumerated commissions from the Executive Power, with the prior authorization of the Chamber in question.

Art. 104. Deputies and Senators are not responsible to any court or to any authority, for the votes they may cast or the opinions they may express in the exercise of their functions.

Art. 105. Senators and Deputies are inviolable in the exercise of their functions, and may not be accused or arrested without previous authorization of the Chamber to which they belong, from one month before the opening of the legislative session until one month after its close, except in flagrante delicto, in which case they shall be placed at the disposal of the Chamber in question within twenty-four hours.

Art. 106. Senators and Deputies may not conclude by themselves or through an intermediary contracts with the national administration, or with the departmental or municipal administration, nor may they obtain concessions of public property.

This prohibition does not include the ordinary concessions of mines, waters, and lands on the eastern side of the Andes (de montaña).

Deputies and Senators may not accept from anyone mandates to bring about business in which are concerned, in the exercise of their functions, the administrative authorities in general.

The transgression of these prohibitions involves nullity of the act and loss of the legislative mandate.

Art. 107. Congress shall be installed each year on July 28, with or without the convocation of the Executive Power.

A regular legislative session lasts one hundred and twenty natural days.

Art. 108. The President of the Republic, in agreement with the Council of Ministers, may convoke Congress to an extraordinary legislative session. The dates of installation and of closing shall be fixed in the decree of convocation.

The President of the Republic must convoke Congress to an extraordinary session when it is requested by half plus one of the available members of Congress. In this case, the session ends when Congress so decides.

Art. 109. The quorum for the installation of Congress in ordinary or extraordinary session is fifty-five percent of the legal number of members of each chamber.

Art. 110. The installation of Congress in ordinary session shall be effected in the presence of the President of the Republic. This presence is not essential in order that Congress may inaugurate its functions.

Art. 111. In extraordinary session, Congress and each of the Chambers has the same powers as in the ordinary session.

Art. 112. Neither Chamber may function during a recess of the other.

Art. 113. The Presidency of Congress shall be taken alternately by the Presidents of the Chambers. The President of the Senate presides at the inaugural meeting.

Art. 114. Each Chamber elects its directive officers annually.

Art. 115. Each Chamber organizes its secretariat, appoints and removes its employees, sanctions its expenditures, and arranges its economy and internal policing; in conformity with the law it grants retirement and superannuation pensions and gratuities to its employees or to their relatives.

Art. 116. Relations between both Chambers, and of each of them and Congress with the Executive Power, and the functioning of Congress and the Chambers, shall be established by the internal rules of Congress, which shall have the force of law.

Art. 117. The sessions of Congress and of each of the Chambers shall be public, except in the cases specified in the internal rules.

Art. 118. The armed forces may not enter the precints of Congress nor of the Chambers at any time without the authorization of the respective President.

The Executive Power is obligated to place at the disposal of Congress and of each Chamber, during the legislative session and the functioning of the Chamber in preparatory councils, the armed forces requested by the President in question.

Art. 119. Each Chamber has the right to appoint committees of inquiry. The national, departmental, or municipal administrative authorities, and the judicial authorities, are obligated to submit to the said committees the information and documents which they request.

Any Deputy or Senator may ask the Ministers of State for data and reports which he considers necessary for the exercise of his functions.

Art. 120. Congress may not grant personal thanks which are translated into treasury expenditure, nor increase the emoluments of public officials and employees, except on the initiative of the Executive Power.

Art. 121. It appertains to the Chamber of Deputies to impeach before the Senate the President of the Republic, the members of both Chambers, the Ministers of State and the Members of the Supreme Court of Justice, for infractions of the Constitution and for any crime committed in the execution of their functions which, according to law, must be punished.

Art. 122. It appertains to the Senate to declare whether there is or is not a true case in consequence of the accusations made by the Chamber of Deputies. In the first case, the accused shall be suspended in the exercise of his functions and shall be subjected to justice according to law.

Art. 123. The functions of Congress are:

(1) To enact laws; to interpret, amend, and repeal existing laws;
(2) To open and close ordinary and extraordinary legislative sessions at the time which the Constitution fixes;
(3) To designate its meeting place and determine whether there are or are not to be armed forces, in what number and at what distance;
(4) To examine infractions of the Constitution and do what is necessary in order to make effective the responsibility of those who infringe it;
(5) To impose taxation and abolish existing taxation; sanction the budget; approve or disapprove the general accounts of the Republic submitted annually by the Executive Power, and approve the estimates of the Departmental Councils;
(6) To authorize the Executive Power to negotiate loans pledging the national treasury and indicating funds for their amortization;
(7) To enact customs tariffs;
(8) To recognize the national debt and indicate the means for its consolidation and amortization;
(9) To create and abolish public posts and assign to them the proper emoluments, with the exception of those whose creation or abolition devolves on other bodies according to the law;
(10) To fix the content, weight, type and the denomination of the currency, as well as the system of weights and measures;
(11) To accept or reject the resignation from his post of the President of the Republic;
(12) To declare vacant the Presidency of the Republic in the cases which the Constitution indicates;
(13) To approve or disapprove the proposals for promotion which, subject to the law, are made by the Executive Power for Generals of Division and Vice-Admirals, Generals of Brigade and Rear-Admirals, Colonels and Naval Captains; and to grant them, without the requirement of proposal by the Executive Power, for eminent services calling for national gratitude;
(14) To establish new archbishoprics and bishoprics or to abolish those already existing at the request of the Executive Power;
(15) To effect the demarcation and division of the national territory;
(16) To solve conflicts which arise between the Executive Power and the Departmental Councils;
(17) To make awards to towns, corporations, or individuals for eminent services rendered to the Republic;
(18) To grant consent for the entry of foreign troops into the territory of the Republic, provided that it does not affect national sovereignty in any way;
(19) To decide upon declaration of war on the initiative or following a statement by the Executive Power, and to call upon the latter to negotiate peace;
(20) To determine in each ordinary legislative session, and in extraordinary sessions when required, the effectives of the armed forces;
(21) To approve or disapprove treaties, concordats, and other conventions concluded with foreign governments;
(22) To exercise the right of pardon. Only during the recess of Congress may the Executive Power grant pardon to persons convicted for political-social crimes; and
(23) To exercise the other essential attributes of legislative power.

TITLE VI
Enactment and Promulgation of the Laws

Art. 124. Senators, Deputies, and the Executive Power have the right of initiative in the enactment of laws and legislative resolutions; and the members of the Judicial Power through the Supreme Court of Justice in judicial matters.

Art. 125. Bills approved by one Chamber shall pass to the other for review. Additions shall be subjected to the same procedure as bills.

Art. 126. Bills amended or rejected by the reviewing Chamber shall be sent back to the Chamber of origin in order that it may decide whether or not it insists on its original decision.

Art. 127. In the case of insistence, Congress shall decide.

Art. 128. Within ten days following the receipt by the President of the Republic of a law approved by Congress, the former must promulgate it and order its observance.

Art. 129. If the President of the Republic does not promulgate and order the observance of the law within ten days, it shall be promulgated and its observance ordered by the President of Congress, who shall order its publication in some newspaper.

Art. 130. In drafting laws Congress shall use this formula:

The Executive, in promulgating and ordering the observance of laws, shall use this formula:

Art. 131. To interpret, amend, or repeal laws, the same procedure shall be observed as for their enactment.

Art. 132. A law is obligatory from the day following its promulgation and publication, except when the law itself provides otherwise.

Art. 133. Members of the public can take action before the Judicial Power against regulations, and against the government resolutions and decrees of a general character