Is Chile’s Rewrite of the Constitution Going Off Course?

Michael Diaz, managing partner, and Eric Pons, associate attorney at Diaz Reus: “The words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau adequately capture the social and political undercurrents in Chile: ‘In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something, and none has too much.’ In October 2020, after historic levels of social unrest in Chile related to the private sector’s control of health, housing, education and retirement programs, a super-majority
of Chilean voters agreed to overhaul the country’s heavily pro-market constitution enacted under President Augusto Pinochet. The legislature has until July 5, 2022, to finalize a draft of the new constitution, but popular support for it has waned significantly.

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