Título VII. Reformas a la Constitución

Have initiative to propose reforms to the Constitution:

a)The President of the Republic in Council of Ministers;

b)Ten or more deputies to the Congress of the Republic;

c)The Constitutional Court; and

d)The people by petition addressed to the Congress of the Republic, by no fewer than five thousand citizens duly registered by the Registry of Citizens.

In any of the above cases, the Congress of the Republic must address without any delay the matter raised.

To reform this or any article contained in Chapter I of Title II of this Constitution, it is indispensable that the Congress of the Republic, with the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members comprising it, convoke a National Constituent Assembly. The decree of convocation shall specify the article or articles to be revised and shall be communicated to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal so that it may set the date on which the elections shall be held within the maximum time limit of one hundred twenty days, proceeding in all else in accordance with the Constitutional Electoral Law.

The National Constituent Assembly and the Congress of the Republic may function simultaneously. The qualifications required to be a deputy to the National Constituent Assembly are the same as those required to be a Deputy to the Congress and constituent deputies shall enjoy equal immunities and prerogatives.

No one may simultaneously be a deputy to the National Constituent Assembly and to the Congress of the Republic.

The elections of deputies to the National Constituent Assembly, the number of deputies to be elected and other matters related to the electoral process shall be regulated in the same manner as elections to the Congress of the Republic.

For any other constitutional reform, it shall be necessary for the Congress of the Republic to approve it with the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the total number of deputies. The reforms shall not enter into force until they are ratified by means of the popular consultation referred to in Article 173 of this Constitution.

If the result of the popular consultation is ratification of the reform, it shall enter into force sixty days after the Supreme Electoral Tribunal announces the result of the consultation.

In no case may Articles 140, 141, 165, subparagraph g), 186 and 187 be amended, nor in any manner any question referring to the republican form of government, to the principle of non-reelection for the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic, nor shall effectiveness or validity be diminished with respect to the articles establishing alternation in the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic, nor shall they be suspended or in any other manner their content varied or modified.