translated from Spanish: Deputy Celis introduces bill seeking to eliminate February legislative recess in Congress

Deputy Andrés Celis Montt (RN) introduced a bill that aims to eliminate the legislative recess that Congress conducts every year in February. The initiative seeks to set parliamentarians’ leave in 15 days, as regulated by the Administrative Statute governing public sector workers.
The project seeks to amend the Organic Law of the National Congress, in order to establish a regulation for the parliamentary holiday and not be left to the discretion of the president of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, since the latter is the only one authorized to suspend the legislative recess under current regulations. So Celis’ proposal would eliminate the latter prerogative.
“The so-called parliamentary recess does not exist, there is no rule either at the legal or regulatory level that defines that in February Congress does not work; that, it’s just a condoned administrative practice that must end. That’s why I introduced a bill to define the 15-business days of parliamentarians’s holidays, like all Chileans,” explained Mr Andrés Celis.
The RN MP argued that “the conditions the country is going through make it intolerable for a state power like the legislature to cease to function for an entire month. This exalts the privileges of the few and ignores the sense of urgency required to overcome the national contingency. I propose the right thing, that we have the same vacation as all of us, no more, no less.”
“I want to clarify that the rights acquired by the officials of the Corporation would be respected. As I was able to talk to House Secretary General Miguel Landeros, there are different areas of Congress that continue to operate during February such as the secretariat, the parties office, the treasury, among others, so that if they would be the condition for implement my proposal, what is lacking is political will,” he concluded.

Original source in Spanish