Constituent Assembly

A constituent assembly or constituent congress is a national meeting of popular representatives who assume the sole objective of agreeing on rules that will govern, in the future, the relationship between rulers and governed, as well as the functioning, distribution of power and foundation of its political and social system.

A constituent assembly is a body of collegiate representatives elected by citizens, whose function is to draft the new constitution and define its political organization, endowed with full powers or constituent power to which all public institutions must submit. It is usually defined, by some texts ^{[which one?]} of political and social sciences, as the "gathering of people, which symbolize the people exercising their authority of representative, who are in charge of exercising the power to legislate, to edit a new fundamental law and the new lines of the organization of a State, which will modify the already existing prototypes.^{[citation required ]} In this understanding, the constituent assembly becomes a popular and democratic mechanism, for the configuration of a new model of constitutional legislation and organization of the State.

It is not about generating constitutional amendments specific to the functions of parliaments, but about radical transformations, aimed at changing their basic structures.

The most influential Constituent Assembly in the Contemporary Age and which also marks its beginning, is the one that originated from the French Revolution that overthrew absolute monarchical power and declared the fundamental principles of human rights thanks to the "Liberty, equality, fraternity".

Constituent assemblies

Europe

Germany

• Weimar National Assembly, 1919.

• The Parliamentary Council of 1949 punishes the Basic Law.

Spain

• The Constituent Courts of 1812 sanction the Constitution of 1812.
• The Constituent Courts of 1837 sanction the Constitution of 1837.
• The Constituent Courts of 1845 sanction the Constitution of 1845.
• The Constituent Courts of 1854 that did not enact the Constitution of 1856.
• The Constituent Courts of 1869 sanction the Constitution of 1869.
• The Constituent Courts of 1873 draft the Federal Constitution of 1873.
• The Constituent Courts of 1876 sanction the Constitution of 1876.
• The Constituent Courts of 1931 sanction the Constitution of 1931.
• The Constituent Courts of 1977-78 sanction the Constitution of 1978.

France

• The National Constituent Assembly of 1789.

Russia

• The Russian Constituent Assembly of 1918.

America

Argentina

• The Assembly of the Year XIII, convened by the Government of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata to declare Independence and to sanction a new Constitution, objectives not fulfilled.
• The Constituent General Congress, meeting in the city of Santa Fe on the occasion of the sanction of the Constitution of 1853.
• The National Constituent Convention Ad-Hoc of 1860, amends the Constitution of 1853 based on the provisions of the pact of San José de Flores.
• The National Constituent Convention of 1866 reformed the constitution of 1853. It's a minor reform.
• The National Constituent Convention of 1898. Another reform less than the constitution of 1853.
• The National Constituent Convention of 1949, is reformed once again the constitution of 1853
• The National Constituent Convention of 1957, reverts much of the Constitution of 1949, annulled by Decree by the de facto president Pedro E. Aramburu, was carried out during a de facto government. The proscribed Peronism called the blank vote. Its legitimacy was questioned by various sectors, dissolving for lack of a quorum without having completed its agenda.
• The National Constituent Convention of Argentina of 1994 reformed the constitution of 1853 to allow the re-election of the Peronist Carlos Menem. It is the last constitutional reform to date.

Bolivia

• The Constituent Assembly of Bolivia that approved the Political Constitution of the State of 2007.

Chile

• The Constitutional Convention of 2021-2022 developed a proposal that was rejected through a plebiscite.

Colombia

• The National Convention that drafted the Constitution of 1832.
• The National Convention that drafted the Constitution of 1863.
• The Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution of 1886.
• The Constituent Assembly of 1952-1954 reformed the Constitution of 1886.

• The 1991 Constituent Assembly that drafted the current Constitution.

Costa Rica

• The National Constituent Assembly of 1871.
• The National Constituent Assembly of 1949.

Ecuador

• The 1997-1998 Constituent Assembly.
• The 2007-2008 Constituent Assembly.

El Salvador

• The Tenth Constituent Assembly of El Salvador, 1982, which approved the Constitution of 1983.

United States of America

• The Philadelphia Convention of 1787, the purpose of which was to reform the State and to draft and punish the current Constitution of the United States.

Mexico

• The Constituent General Congress that approved the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824.
• The Extraordinary Constituent Congress that approved the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1857.
• The Constituent Congress that approved the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1917.

Panama

• The Constituent Assembly of Panama of 1946, convened by means of the constituent power in 1945 and is called Constituent Conventionwhich repeals the 1941 Constitution issued by Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia. On 1 March 1946 a new Constitutional Statute was adopted and was appointed as Interim President Enrique A. Jiménez.

Peru

• The Constituent Congress of 1822
• The National Assembly of 1919
• The 1931 Constituent Congress.
• The 1978 Constituent Assembly.
• The 1992 Constituent Congress approved the Constitution of the Republic of Peru of 1993.

Venezuela

• The General Congress, installed on March 2, 1811, whose performance led to the proclamation of the political independence of the Venezuelan provinces of the Kingdom of Spain on July 5, 1811, and the elaboration and punishment on December 21 of the same year of the first republican Constitution of the Spanish America, thus establishing the First Republic. This constituent Congress is considered to be the oldest in Latin America and the second in America, only after the United States.
• The National Constituent Assembly of 1952, which approved the Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela of 1953.
• The National Constituent Assembly that approved the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of 1999.
• The National Constituent Assembly of 2017, which served as the legislative body of the nation in parallel to the National Assembly.