Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America, bordering Brazil,
Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. State government activities are
conducted in 37 languages. 68% of the ethnic group is hybrid, and 89% of
the religion is Christian.
Bolivia's constitution is one of
the largest in the world. Many articles have been added to protect the
interests of the people and to prevent imperialist states from
plundering resources by putting puppet governments in power.
Bolivia provides freedom of religious belief. Disappearance is
prohibited at any stage. Everyone's right to food and water is
guaranteed. Free public health care is guaranteed in the state. The
availability of medicines is not limited by copyright law. The state
will provide diversified public transport. There will be no monopoly on
the ownership of any means of communication.
All minerals,
hydrocarbons, water, air, soil and subsoil, forests, biodiversity,
electromagnetic spectrum and all the elements and physical energy
capable of being used will be considered as natural resources and are
the property of the state.
These are positive aspects. Now let's discuss the negative aspects.
All the people of the world should have equal status. But the Bolivian
constitution gives special status for the so-called "indigenous people".
Additional facilities have been ensured for them. It is not a sign of
unity, but a sign of terrible division.
Admirable Articles of Bolivia's Constitution
Article 4
The State respects and guarantees freedom of religion and spiritual beliefs, according to their view of the world. The State is independent of religion.
Article 14 (Part of it)
I. Every human being, without distinction, has legal status and capacity under the law and enjoys the rights recognized in this Constitution.
II. The State prohibits and punishes all forms of discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious belief, ideology, political affiliation or philosophy, civil status, economic or social condition, type of occupation, level of education, disability, pregnancy, and any other discrimination that attempts to or results in the annulment of or harm to the equal recognition, enjoyment or exercise of the rights of all people.
Article 15
III. The State shall adopt the necessary measures to prevent, eliminate and punish sexual and generational violence, as well as any action or omission intended to be degrading to the human condition, to cause death, pain, and physical, sexual or psychological suffering, whether in public or private spheres.
IV. No person shall be submitted to a forced disappearance for any reason or under any circumstance.
V. No person shall be submitted to servitude or slavery. The trade and trafficking of persons is prohibited.
Article 16
I. Every person has the right to water and food.
II. The State has the obligation to guarantee food security, by means of healthy, adequate and sufficient food for the entire population.
Article 18
I. Every person has the right to health.
II. The State guarantees the inclusion and access to health for all persons, without any exclusion or discrimination.
III. There shall be a single health system, which shall be universal, free, equitable, intra-cultural, intercultural, and participatory, with quality, kindness and social control. The system is based on the principles of solidarity, efficiency and co-responsibility, and it is developed by public policies at all levels of the government.
Article 41
I. The State shall guarantee the access of the population to medicines.
II. The State shall prioritize generic medicines through the promotion of their domestic production and, if need be, shall decide to import them.
III. The right to access medicine shall not be restricted by intellectual property rights and commercial rights, and it contemplates quality standards and first generation medicines.
Article 43
The law shall regulate the donations and transplants of cells, tissue or organs, based on principles of humanity, solidarity, opportunity, providing them free of charge, and efficiency.
Article 46 (Part of it)
I. Every person has the following rights:
- To dignified work, with industrial and occupational health and safety, without discrimination, and with a fair, equitable and satisfactory remuneration or salary that assures a dignified existence for the worker and his or her family.
- To a stable source of work under equitable and satisfactory conditions.
Article 62
The State recognizes and protects the family as the fundamental nucleus of society, and guarantees the social and economic conditions necessary for its full development. Every member has equal rights, obligations and opportunities.
Article 75
The users and consumers enjoy the following rights:
- To the supply of food, pharmaceuticals, and products in general, in harmless and quality condition, in sufficient and adequate quantity, and with efficient service and timely supply.
- To reliable information about the characteristics and contents of the products they consume and of the services they use.
Article 76
I. The State guarantees access to a comprehensive system of public transportation in diverse modalities. The law shall determine that the system of transportation be efficient and effective, and that it generates benefits to the users and to the providers.
II. No customs controls, squads or control points of any kind may exist in Bolivian territory, except those that have been created by law.
Article 84
The State and society have the duty to eradicate illiteracy through programs compatible with the cultural and linguistic reality of the population.
Article 85
The State shall promote and guarantee the continuing education of children and adolescents with disabilities, or of those with extraordinary talents in learning, under the same structure, principles and values of the educational system, and shall establish a special organization and development curriculum.
Article 104
Everyone has the right to sports, physical culture and recreation. The State guarantees access to sports without distinction as to gender, language, religion, political orientation, territorial location, social, cultural membership or any other characteristic.
Article 107 (Part of it)
III. The public means of communication shall not form, either directly or indirectly, monopolies or oligopolies.
Article 114
I. All forms of torture, disappearances, confinement, coercion, exaction and any other form of physical and moral violence are prohibited. The public servants or officials, who apply, instigate or consent to them shall be dismissed and replaced, without prejudice to the sanctions determined by law.
II. The statements, actions or omissions which are obtained or undertaken through the employment of torture, coercion, exaction, or by any other form of violence, are null to the full extent of the law.
Article 124
I. The Bolivian who engages in the following acts commits the crime of treason against the country:
- Takes up arms against his or her country, puts him or herself at the service of participating foreign states, or enters into complicity with the enemy in the case of an international war against Bolivia.
- Violates the constitutional regime of natural resources.
- Attacks the unity of the country.
II. This crime shall deserve the maximum criminal sanction.
Article 176
To be designated a Minister, a person must meet the following requisites: satisfy the general requirements for entering public service, be twenty five years of age on the day of his or her nomination, not be a member of the Pluri-National Legislative Assembly, nor a director, shareholder or owner of financial entities or enterprises that have a contractual relationship or conflicts of interest with the State; not be the spouse or natural parent or related in the second degree to the acting President or Vice President of the State.
Article 238 (Part of it)
Persons who fall within the following grounds are ineligibility to hold elective public office:
- Those that were or are directors of enterprises or corporations that have contracts or agreements with the State and who have not resigned at least three months before the day of the election.
Article 344 (Part of it)
I. The manufacture and use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on Bolivian territory is prohibited, as well as the internment, transit and deposit of nuclear and toxic wastes.
Article 348 (Part of it)
I. Minerals in all of their states, the hydrocarbons, water, air, soil and the subsoil, the forests, the biodiversity, the electromagnetic spectrum and all the elements and physical forces capable of use, are considered natural resources.
Article 349 (Part of it)
I. The natural resources are the property and direct domain, indivisible and without limitation, of the Bolivian people, and their administration corresponds to the State on behalf of the collective interest.
III. Agriculture, livestock, as well as the activities of hunting and fishing that do not involve protected animal species.
Article 358
The rights to the use and exploitation of natural resources shall be subject to the Constitution and the law. These rights shall be subject to periodic review for compliance with the technical, economic and environmental regulations. The violation of the law shall lead to the reversion or nullification of the rights of use and exploitation.
Article 373
I. Water constitutes a fundamental right for life, within the framework of the sovereignty of the people. The State shall promote the use and access to water on the basis of principles of solidarity, complementariness, reciprocity, equity, diversity and sustainability.
II. Water resources in all their states, surface and subterraneous, constitute finite, vulnerable, strategic resources, and serve a social, cultural and environmental function. These resource cannot be the object of private appropriation and they, as well as water services, shall not be given as concessions and are subject to a system of licensing, registration and authorization pursuant to the law.
Article 374
I. The State shall protect and guarantee the priority use of water for life. It is the duty of the State to manage, regulate, protect and plan the adequate and sustainable use of water resources, with social participation, guaranteeing access to water for all the habitants. The law shall establish the conditions and limitations of all the uses.
II. The State shall recognize, respect and protect the uses and customs of the community, of its local authorities and the rural native indigenous organizations over the right, management and administration of sustainable water.
III. The fossil, glacial, wetland, subterraneous, mineral, medicinal and other waters are priorities for the State, which must guarantee its conservation, protection, preservation, restoration, sustainable use and complete management; they are inalienable, not attachable and cannot be limited.
Article 375
I. It is the duty of the State to develop plans for the use, conservation, management and sustainable exploitation of the river basins.
II. The State shall regulate the management and sustainable administration of the water resources and the basins for irrigation, food security and basic services, respecting the uses and customs of the communities.
III. It is the duty of the State to carry out the studies for the identification of fossil waters and their consequent protection, management and sustainable administration.
Article 376
Water resources of the rivers, lakes and lagoons that form the water basins are considered strategic resources for the development and sovereignty of Bolivia because of their potential, for the variety of natural resources that they contain, and because they are a fundamental part of the ecosystems. The State shall avoid actions in the sources and intermediary zones of rivers that may cause damages to the ecosystems or diminish the flow volume, shall preserve the natural state, and shall watch over the development and welfare of the population.
Article 380
I. The renewable natural resources shall be exploited in a sustainable way, respecting the characteristics and natural value of each ecosystem.
II. In order to guarantee ecological equilibrium, the land must be used in accordance with its capacity for greater use within the framework of the process of the organization of use and occupation of lands, taking into account their biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural characteristics, and institutional policies.
Article 381
I. Native animal and vegetable species are natural assets. The State shall establish the measures necessary for their conservation, exploitation and development.
II. The State shall protect all genetic and micro-organic resources, which are found in the ecosystems of the territory, as well as the knowledge associated with their use and exploitation. For their protection, a system of registry that safeguards their existence shall be established, as well as a registry of the intellectual property in the name of the State or the local individuals who claim it. The State shall establish procedures for protection under the law of all those resources that are not registered.
Article 382
The State has the authority and duty to defend, recover, protect and repatriate biological material derived from natural resources, from ancestral knowledge and other sources that originate within the territory.
Article 383
The State shall establish measures for the partial or total, temporary or permanent, restriction of the uses of extracts from the resources of biodiversity. The measures shall be directed toward the need to preserve, conserve, recover and restore the biodiversity at risk of extinction. Illegal possession, handling and trafficking of species of biodiversity shall be criminally punished.
Facts of Bolivia's Constitution
Article 3
The Bolivian nation is formed by all Bolivians, the native indigenous nations and peoples, and the inter-cultural and Afro-Bolivian communities that, together, constitute the Bolivian people.
CHAPTER IV. Rights of the Nations and Rural Native Indigenous Peoples
Article 30 (The whole Chapter and Article are just shits)
I. A nation and rural native indigenous people consists of every human collective that shares a cultural identity, language, historic tradition, institutions, territory and world view, whose existence predates the Spanish colonial invasion.
Article 31
I. The nations and the rural native indigenous peoples that are in danger of extinction, in voluntary isolation and not in contact, shall be protected and respected with respect to their forms of individual and collective life.
II. The nations and the rural native indigenous peoples that live in isolation and out of contact enjoy the right to maintain themselves in that condition, and to the legal definition and consolidation of the territory which they occupy and inhabit.
Article 32
The Afro-Bolivian people enjoy, in everything corresponding, the economic, social, political and cultural rights that are recognized in the Constitution for the nations and the rural native indigenous peoples.
Article 88 (Part of it)
II. The right of mothers and fathers to choose the education they prefer for their sons and daughters is respected.
