Amid all the concern worldwide over economic trends, interesting news can sometimes be overlooked. One such case was a Washington Post report last week on three nations of Latin America that have recently undertaken to revamp their constitutions. Venezuela did so in 1999; now Ecuador and Bolivia are following Venezuela's path. The latter two are producing new Constitutions with the reported help of a few legal experts from Spanish universities who were also instrumental in the Venezuelan Constitution. Some commentators express concern that these new fundamental laws could lead - perhaps already have led - to greater populism, similar to the style of Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez.
I suspect we will see more Chavez-like attitudes from Latin American countries in the future, but it has nothing to do with their Constitutions; it is a function of economic and population trends. In fact we might want to welcome such developments, and even the new constitutions, to the degree that they succeed in allowing governments to deal more effectively than their predecessors did with the problems their people face. We should recognize, too, that despite Chavez's blustering talk, we ought not to take him too seriously - he needs to portray us as the bogeyman to deflect blame from himself when things look bad in Caracas, and the profits he makes from continuing to sell us oil enable him to do so.
Then, too, these new constitutions seem very temporary. Constitutions are guiding only to the degree that they are considered permanent, and the political leadership is willing to be bound by them. There is little history of leaders in Latin America doing so -- Venezuela has just amended its new Constitution after only ten years, for the purpose of allowing Mr. Chavez to continue longer in power. Moreover, even with the most noble of intentions on the leaders' part, some of the new provisions seem positively designed to self-destruct. Here's an excerpt from the above-mentioned article:
"While the U.S. Constitution has seven articles and 27 amendments, Venezuela's constitution has 350 articles, Bolivia's has 411, and Ecuador taps out at 444. Each document spells out a lengthy list of rights. The Bolivian constitution, for example, guarantees rights to food, water, free education and health care, sewer service, electricity, gas, mail and telephones, cultural self-identification, privacy, honor, dignity and a life free from torture and physical, psychological or sexual violence."
Well, how could any government live up to those promises? If people have these "rights," including free education and health care, government becomes the provider of last resort; it's hard to imagine that it would be very long before something goes awry with a scheme like that. Possibly Venezuela, with its oil revenues, could manage it, but it's difficult to see how either Bolivia or Ecuador could. Inevitably, unfolding events will turn these constitutions into anachronisms; they are unlikely to last.
As we in the U.S. deal with one tiny element of inconsidered specificity in our own Constitution (that which limits representation in the House of Representatives to "states," thus excluding the District of Columbia), we need to remain aware of the very fine line between too specific, and not specific enough. The strength of our Constitution has been its generality and adaptability to social, political, demographic, economic, and other changes.
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