The Political Constitution of Costa Rica of 1871 has been the longest duration Constitution in the history of the country, as except for brief periods, it was in force between 1871 and 1949. [1] Influenced by the Liberals, the Constitution of 1871 was quite pioneering for the time and, among other things, abolished the death penalty, decreed the freedom of religion, strengthened education and separated the three branches of the Republic. [2]
In 1870 the provisional Costa Rican president Bruno Carranza Ramírez called a Constituent Assembly shortly before resigning his post, which was assumed by General Tomás Guardia. [3] This Assembly temporarily maintained the 1859 Constitution, however, Guardia dissolved that Assembly on October 10, 1870. On August 12, 1871, elections were held to elect deputies to the new Constituent Assembly, which was established on March 5, 1870. October of that year and until December 7, 1871, in which the new Constitution emanated. [3]
The elections for constituent deputies of convened by President Guardia were held in August 1871, shortly after Guardia dissolved the previous Constitutional Conventionjust when Carranza presented his resignation under pressure from Guardia, who was commander of the Army. Soon the tensions between Guardia and the Carrancistas became obvious, so Guardia annulled the Assembly and called new elections using a different Electoral Law. [3] While for the elections of 1870 Carranza used a law of its creation issued on June 20, 1871 that established as requirements to be able to vote be over 25 years, own a property valued at at least one thousand pesos or an annual income of five hundred and priests, soldiers and judicial officials were banned from voting. [3]
Guardia modified the law to call these elections establishing -among other things- the elimination of economic requirements and allowed members of the clergy, the judiciary and the military to vote and be elected deputies, likewise the requirements they were older than 25 years old, able to read and write and be a resident of the province where they voted. This National Constituent Convention successfully drafted the Constitution of 1871 that has been the longest lasting in the country. Except for a very short time Guardia would remain in power as a dictator until his death in 1882, during which time only calls for municipal elections, and two unsuccessful attempts to convene new constituents in 1876 and 1880 would be canceled. before being finalized by Guardia mainly for fear that they would be used by the opposition. [3]
José Bruno Carranza Ramírez was briefly President of Costa Rica in 1870. Bruno Carranza came to power in the coup d'état of 27 April 1870 that deposed President Jesús Jiménez. He resigned three months later.
The Legislative Assembly forms the unicameral legislative branch of the Costa Rican government. The national congress building is located in the capital city, San José, specifically in Carmen district of the San José canton.
A referendum on appointing Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez as President with special powers was held in Costa Rica on 8 August 1870. It was approved, and Gutiérrez assumed the presidency on 11 September.
The Constitution of Costa Rica is the supreme law of Costa Rica. At the end of the 1948 Costa Rican Civil War, José Figueres Ferrer oversaw the Costa Rican Constitutional Assembly, which drafted the document. It was approved on 1949 November 7. Several older constitutions had been in effect starting from 1812, with the most recent former constitution ratified in 1871. The Costa Rican Constitution is remarkable in that in its Article 12 abolished the Costa Rican military, making it the second nation after Japan to do so by law. Another unusual clause is an amendment asserting the right to live in a healthy natural environment.
After the coup against dictator Jesús Jiménez Zamora on April 27, 1870, and after the brief government of Bruno Carranza Ramírez, Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez succeeded on August 8 and elections were called by the then provisional president Guardia on 8 of May 1872. It was the first time that the presidency was exercised by a military.
The Free State of Costa Rica was the name acquired by Costa Rica after its split from the Federal Republic of Central America in 1838 and until the proclamation of the First Costa Rican Republic in 1847.
The Liberal State is the historical period in Costa Rica that occurred approximately between 1870 and 1940. It responded to the hegemonic dominion in the political, ideological and economic aspects of liberal philosophy. It is considered a period of transcendental importance in Costa Rican history, as it's when the consolidation of the National State and its institutions finally takes place.
The history of the Costa Rican legislature is long and starts from even before its formal independence from the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica is one of the world's oldest democracies, thus, its parliamentary history dates back several centuries.
The Fundamental Law of the Free State of Costa Rica, sometimes called the Political Constitution of 1825, was issued on January 25, 1825 by the Constituent Congress of the State of Costa Rica and during a time the country was a formal member of the Federal Republic of Central America. It would function until it was abrogated by Braulio Carrillo Colina who in 1838 takes power in a dictatorial manner and issues on March 8, 1841 the Decree of Basis and Guarantees that will operate as a de facto constitution until the arrival of Francisco Morazán in 1844 who overthrew Carrillo and was temporarily restored.
The Political Constitution of the Free State of Costa Rica promulgated on April 9, 1844 was the second constitution of the country, if local constitutions are excluded when it was a member of the Central American Federation, and eight if these are included. Francisco Morazán's regime was toppled by José María Alfaro Zamora. Zamora as interim ruler, on April 5, 1843, convened a Constitutional Assembly that was officially established on June 1 of that year and drafted the Constitution that would be in force until 1847 when, Alfaro again, summons a new Constituent.
The Political Constitution of the State of Costa Rica was promulgated on February 10, 1847 under the interim government of José María Alfaro Zamora who convened a Constituent Assembly for that purpose through elections on August 23, 1846.
The Political Constitution of Costa Rica of 1859 was issued on December 27.1 It was in force until November 1, 1868 and also, partially, from August to October of 1870..
1860 Constitution was the Constitution of Costa Rica for two years, between 1869 and 1871.
The Political Constitution of Costa Rica of 1917 was a constitution that was in force for two years; from 1917 to 1919. It was promulgated by then dictator Federico Tinoco Granados after the coup d'état that overthrew Alfredo González Flores in 1917. It was drafted by the ex-presidents Bernardo Soto Alfaro, Rafael Iglesias Castro, Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra, Cleto González Víquez and Carlos Durán Cartín. The presidents José Joaquín Rodríguez Zeledón and Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno were invited to participate in the process as others of their status, but they refused to do so with various excuses.
The Constitutional Congress of Costa Rica was the unicameral parliament of the country for most of its history. It was established in the Political Constitution of 1871. It consisted of 43 deputies and 18 alternates elected proportionally by provinces at the rate of one deputy for every 15,000 inhabitants with, among other powers, being able to choose the President in case none of the candidates obtained the minimum required to be elected, as happened in the 1913 election, the first election that were held with direct popular vote, and in which none of the candidates; Máximo Fernández Alvarado, Carlos Durán Cartín and Rafael Yglesias Castro, gathered enough votes to win in the first round. It was therefore the responsibility of the Congress to choose the president from among the candidates, but all of them withdrew their name and Alfredo González Flores was chosen.
The Founding Junta of the Second Republic was a de facto government which existed in the Republic of Costa Rica from May 8, 1948 to November 8, 1949, with the overthrow of the constitutional president Teodoro Picado Michalski, by a group of revolutionaries headed by José Figueres Ferrer.
The dictatorship of the Tinoco Brothers, also Tinochist or Peliquist Dictatorship, or Tinoco regime is the period of Costa Rica in which the military dictatorship led by Federico Tinoco Granados as de facto president and his brother José Joaquín Tinoco Granados as Minister of War was in place. It began after the 1917 Costa Rican coup d'état on January 27, 1917 and culminated with the departure of Tinoco from Costa Rica to France on August 13, 1919 three days after the murder of his brother and after a series of armed insurrections and massive civil protests known as the Sapoá Revolution and the 1919 student civic movement.
The coup d'état of April 27, 1870 in Costa Rica was a coup implemented by the military leadership led by Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez and it established, to a large extent, the inauguration of the Liberal State. It also enacted the Costa Rican Constitution of 1871, the longest in Costa Rican history as it remained in force until 1948.
Calderonism or Calderonismo is a political and ideological doctrine of Costa Rica, which emerged in the 1940s under the leadership of caudillo Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, before, during and after he was president with his National Republican Party, and which was continued by various political forces such as Unity Coalition, National Unification Party and the current Social Christian Unity Party and its split the Social Christian Republican Party. It is together with Liberacionismo one of the two traditional political tendencies of Costa Rican politics, with which it represented a certain type of Costa Rican bipartisanship from 1986 to 2002 and revolves around the Calderón family. It is a form of populist and Catholic Christian socialism very similar to Argentine Peronism.
