constituent Assembly

Assembly, with origin in the French word assemblée, is a institution that is created from the convocation of a certain number of individuals who come together to to debate some matters and take a decision regarding them.

Constituent, for its part, is a term used to name the person or object (physical or symbolic) that creates, composes or determines something. There are, therefore, different types of constituents.

It is known as constituent Assembly to the institution that is specifically conceived for the creation or modification of a Constitution. It should be noted that the Constitution, also known as Magna Carta, meets the most important standards of a Condition.

The constituent assembly, whose members are simply known as constituents, has the can and the power to dictate or change these norms that will govern the functioning of the political and social system of a territory. The constituents are elected by the people, so a constituent assembly is an organ of democracy.

It is often said that the first constituent assembly was the one that took place in France on 1789, when the Revolution. Is National Constituent Assembly went down in history not only for instituting the French constitutionbut also for eliminating the feudal regime and for approving the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

However, it should not be forgotten that said assembly was characterized by another important series of data from interest that marked a milestone in history:

* It gave rise to the realization of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which replaced the Concordat of 1516 and carried out the reorganization of the church in France in a profound way. The result of that one was that the priests became public servants of ecclesiastical type;

* The Assembly was made up of about 1,117 representatives of the three existing States: 604 from the Third State, 295 from the clergy, and 278 from the nobility;

* many were the important figures of that time who took part in this "institution". Specifically, among those we could highlight Honoré Gabriel Riquetti (Count of Mirabeau), Marquis de La Fayette, Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Joseph Mounier and Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès;

* One of the most important days in the life of this National Constituent Assembly was the night of August 4, 1789. And it is that during that evening feudalism was put to an end at the proposal, curiously, of two nobles: Louis-Marie de Noailles and Armand Desiré de Vignerot du Plessis;

* the Tuileries Riding, Versailles or the Archbishop's Palace in Paris were the three enclaves that served as the setting for the growth of the sessions of this important entity in the History of France and the world;

* September 30, 1791 was the day the Assembly was finally dissolved.

Among the constituent assemblies that took place in recent years are the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela (carried out in 1999) and the National Constituent Assembly of Ecuador (2007).

It is possible to distinguish between two kinds of constituent assembly:

* not institutionalized: it is conceived spontaneously, without there being a prior regulation. One of the clearest examples is found in that of the Upper Peru provinces, which originated the Bolivian Republic in 1825;

* institutionalized: the same Constitution regulates and contemplates this type of assembly that, in general, is an organization that was born with the purpose of carrying out reforms in its texts. It is pluralistic, elective, representative, temporary and democratic in nature. This kind of constituent assembly is formed to carry out a particular amendment and dissolves upon completion of its purpose.