A “third way” in the plebiscite to exit the new Constitution. That possibility was slipped by the Venice Commission – a European advisory body – in a document, after a request for a pronouncement sent by 23 senators. The option was rejected by the vice president of the Constitutional Convention, Gaspar Domínguez, indicating that the rules of the process “are clear.”
The Commission pointed out in the report that the binary option in the exit plebiscite – I approve and reject – does not exclude the possibility of a third way, that is, of multiple options.
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However, they stressed that the rules established on the exit plebiscite “are currently clear” for citizens, so “changing these rules would run the risk of transgressing the principle of legal certainty.”
“The view of the Venice Commission is that if the possibility of a third option is offered, it should be through political commitments by the relevant political actors to carry out genuine reform after the plebiscite, rather than changing the terms of the formal review process at this stage,” they added.
Answer from Domínguez
Before the report of the Venice Commission, the conventional Dominguez said that the rules of the constituent process “are and have been clear.”
“The plebiscite has two options: Approve or Reject. Frankly, it seems to me that in this final stretch it is not conducive to think about innovating or modifying this ballot,” said the vice president of the CC.
“In fact this question that was asked to the Venice Commission was explicit, categorical and exhaustive in answering that this was a bad idea, that they did not recommend it and that in the event that you wanted to think about any modification this should be discussed widely,” he added.
Meanwhile, the conventional Patricia Politzer (INN) maintained that “the rules of the game cannot be changed halfway, in that some tried to talk about this third option from the report of the Venice Commission, which was very drastic in this regard. He points out that the rules of the plebiscite are clear and have been made known to citizens and political actors.”
“Changing those rules would run the risk of violating the principle of legal certainty, I agree with that, you cannot change the rules of the game in the middle of the game,” he continued in conversation with Radio Agricultura.
