GARGARELLA, “Going to the ‘engine room’ of power” (Clarín, AR)

Roberto Gargarella, at Clarín, gives his opinion
in this article about the current debate on a potential reform of the National Constitution. In his view, if something should be changed is how the power is organized. He believes a stronger democratization is necessary.

The president of the Supreme Court, Ricardo Lorenzetti, has recently declared that a reform of the Constitution is not necessary since the part that concerns rights is sufficiently recognized. Gargarella only partly agrees; he concurs with Mr. Lorenzetti in the fact that the Constitution is indeed really generous in terms of rights and that should not be changed, but Gargarella thinks that the other part of the Constitution, the one that deals with the organization of power and the division of the three powers, needs to be revised.

The “engine room” of the Constitution has not been touched, except for reinforcing the Presidential power and enabling the reelection. Gargarella find this a bit paradoxical. While the last reforms have added and reinforced more rights, they have at the same time locked the access to a better and more efficient way of handling power. The result is democracy in terms of right, authoritarianism in terms of organization of power. The worst of this situation, he argues, is that those in charge of implementing and guarding the citizens’ rights are the same ones who hold a concentrated power and tend to see popular power as a threat.