The constitutional milestone

April 10th, 1869, is a date dignified by his transcendence in the history of Jurisprudence in Cuba. In the midst of the Ten Years’ War, which began on October 10th, 1868, leaders of the warfare raised the political thinking of the first independent, united and antislavery state that was born. This day, the National Assembly of Cuba, made up of the mambises (Cuban patriots) of the Republic in Armas of the West, Camagüey and Las Villas; they wrote and approved the Constitution of Guáimaro, the first political statute in the republican history in Cuba. It ended two days later with the inauguration of those elected.

The Constitution institutionalized a power mechanism made up of the House of Representatives and the president, with predominance of the assembly. It endorsed a federal administrative structure; recognized freedom as a right, condemning the slavery that existed on the island (Villabella, C. M. 2019). It gave birth to twins, the first Republic in Arms and the First Law of Laws.

In this brief document it highlights in its Article 24: “All citizens of the Republic are entirely free”.

Transcendental stance in an eco-dependent context of the Spanish empire and socially exclusive, among other discriminations.

The Father of the Country, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, as President of the Republic in Arms and the legal thinking of the young lawyer Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz together with Antonio Zambrana; they began a constitutional path Mambisa and Cuban.

Continuity

Almost 10 years later in 1878, after the events of the Zanjón Pact and the Baraguá Protest, led by Antonio Maceo Grajales; the Constitution of Baraguá was approved, very brief, of high symbolic and patriotic value to continue the fight until the definitive victory.

This principle of continuity, liberator, radical independence is maintained in the Constitution of Jimaguayú in 1895, when the necessary warfare organized by José Martí Pérez is restarted. It was specified: “if in two years the war against the Spanish metropolis was not won, another Constituent Assembly should take place.”

On October 10th, 1897, in La Yaya, a new law of laws was approved that founded the Cuban constituent pattern, crowned by the unity of the nation above all else and the assembly government.

Inheritance

The 20th century began with the Constitution of 1901, where it is stated that: “All Cubans are equal before the law. The Republic does not recognize jurisdictions or personal privileges”, drafted and signed by Generals of the Necessary War. Despite the appendix to the constitutional text of the Platt Amendment, which reaffirmed the country’s neocolonial condition with the US military intervention, it constituted one of the most progressive constitutional texts in the American context.

Then, in the Constitution of 1940, one of the most advanced of its time, it was the fruit of the revolutionary struggle that preceded it and was transcendent not only in the legal field, but also in politics. (Torres-Cuevas, 2016).

Present Day

The Fundamental Law of 1959 and the Constitution of 1976, also marked the continuity and antecedents of the Constitution of 2019.

It is highlighted that 150 years after the enactment of the first Law of Laws in Guáimaro, Cuba with the challenge of reflecting the economic, political and social transformations that have occurred in recent years, in the new text it synthesizes the systematized model of independence and national unity.

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Bibliography

Villabella, C.M. (2019) “El derecho constitucional cubano de 1812 al 2009: cánones, ciclos y modelos políticos” en Revista de Historia Constitucional ISSN 1576-4729, n.20, pp. 877-918.

Torres-Cuevas, E. y Suárez, R. (2018) El libro de las Constituciones. TI y II, La Habana, Cuba, Editorial Imagen Contemporánea.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García