Presented for historical interest.
The
Spaniard's Charter, July 16 1945
Article
1. The Spanish State proclaims as a guiding principle of its acts,
respect for the dignity, integrity, and liberty of the human person,
recognizing man, as bearer of eternal values and member of the
national community, to be bolder of titles of duties and rights, the
exercise of which it guarantees for the common good.
TITLE
1. DUTIES AND RIGHTS OF THE SPANISH PEOPLE
Chapter
I
Article
2. Spaniards owe faithful service to their country, loyalty to the
Chief of State and obedience to its laws.
Article
3. The law protects equally the rights of all Spaniards without class
preference or discrimination of persons.
Article
4. Spaniards have a right to the respect of their personal and family
honor. He who should offend it, whatever be his condition, will be
made responsible.
Article
5. All Spaniards have a right to receive education and instruction
and the duty of acquiring them either in the family circle or in
private or public centers of their own free election. The State will
see that no talent is wasted because of lack of economic means.
Article
6. The profession and practice of the Roman Catholic religion, which
is that of the Spanish State, will enjoy official protection.
The
State will assume the protection of religious freedom, which will be
guaranteed by effective judicial protection and which, in turn, will
safeguard morals and public order.
Article
7. It is a title of honor for Spaniards to serve in the armed forces
of their country.All
Spaniards are obliged to this service when they are called to it
according to law.
Article
8. By means of laws, and always with a general character, those
personal services that the interest of the nation and public need
require will be obligatory.
Article
9. Spaniards will contribute to the maintenance of public charges
according to their economic capacity. Nobody will be obliged to pay
tributes that have not been established by law voted by the Cortes.
Article
10. All Spaniards have a right to participate in public office of a
representative character, through the family, the municipality, and
the syndicate (without barring other representation that the laws may
establish).
Article
11. All Spaniards may hold office and public functions according to
their merits and capacity.
Article
12. All Spaniards may freely express their ideas as long as they do
not advocate the overthrow of the fundamental principles of
government.
Article
13. Inside national territory, the State guarantees the liberty and
inviolability of correspondence.
Article
14. Spaniards are at liberty to fix their residence inside national
territory.
Article
15. Nobody may enter the home of a Spaniard or effect a search in it
without his permission, unless with a warrant from the competent
authority and in the case and form established by law.
Article
16. Spaniards may unite and associate themselves freely for lawful
ends and according to what is established by law.
The
State may, create and maintain such agencies as arc deemed necessary
for the accomplishment of its service. Fundamental rulings which will
have the character of law, will co-ordinate the exercise of this
right with that recognized in the preceding paragraph.
Article
17. Spaniards have a right to legal security. All organisms of the
State will act according to a hierarchical order of pre-established
rulings, that may not be interpreted arbitrarily- or altered.
Article
18. No Spaniard may be arrested except in the cases and in the form
prescribed by law. Within a period of seventy-two hours all arrested
persons will be set free or turned over to the juridical authorities.
Article
19. Nobody. may be condemned except under a law prior to the act,
under sentence by a competent tribunal, and after hearing and defense
of the interested party..
Article
20. No Spaniard may be deprived of his nationality, except for
treason, as defined in the penal laws, or for entering the armed
services or exercising public office in a foreign country against the
expressed prohibition of the Chief of State.
Article
21. Spaniards may address individual petitions to the Chief of State,
to the Cortes, and to public authorities.
Corporations,
public officers, and members of the armed forces and institutions may
only exercise this right according to the laws by which they are
ruled.
Chapter
II
Article
22. The State recognizes and protects the family as a natural and
fundamental institution of society - with rights and duties prior and
superior to all human positive law.
Matrimony
is one and indissoluble.
The
State will specially protect families with numerous children.
Article
23. Parents are obliged to provide for, educate, and instruct their
children. The State will suspend the exercise of patria potestad
[note: "power of the father"] or will deprive of it all who
do not exercise it with dignity, and will transfer the custody of
minors to those to whom it corresponds by law.
Chapter
III
Article
24. All Spaniards have a right to work and the duty to occupy
themselves in some socially useful activity.
Article
25. Work, because of its essentially human character, cannot be
reduced to the idea of merchandise, or be the object of a transaction
incompatible with personal dignity. It constitutes in itself an
attribute of honor and a sufficient title to demand guardianship and
assistance from the State.
Article
26. The State recognizes in an enterprise a community of efforts of
technique, labor, and capital in their different forms, and
consequently proclaims the right of these elements to participate in
gains.
The
State will see that relations between them shall be maintained in the
strictest equity and in an order that subordinates economic values to
human values, to the interests of the nation and the exigencies of
the common good.
Article
27. All workers will be protected by the State in their right to a
just and sufficient return, which will as a minimum provide them and
their families with well-being sufficient for a moral and dignified
existence.
Article
28. The Spanish State guarantees the workers security in distress,
and recognizes their rights to assistance in the cases of old age,
death, sickness, maternity, accidents, invalidity, unemployment, and
other hazards that are the object of social insurance.
Article
29. The State will maintain institutions of assistance and will
protect and foster those created by the Church, the corporations, and
private enterprise.
Article
30. The Spanish State recognizes and protects private property as a
natural means for the fulfillment of individual ends.
All
forms of property remain subordinated to the necessities of the
nation and to the common good.
No
source of wealth will be allowed to remain unproductive, unduly
destroyed, or applied to illicit ends.
Article
31. The State will make available to all Spaniards the access to
those forms of property more intimately connected with the human
person, the home, inheritance, implements of production, and goods of
daily use.
Article
32. In no case will a sentence of confiscation of property be passed.Nobody
may be expropriated except in the interest of public and/or social
welfare, after corresponding indemnity and according to what the law
disposes.
TITLE
11. THE EXERCISE AND GUARANTEES OF THE RIGHTS
Article
33. The exercise of the rights that are recognized in this Charter
may not prejudice the spiritual, national, and social unity of the
community.
Article
34. The Cortes will vote the necessary laws for the exercise of the
rights recognized by this Charter.
Article
35. The enforcement of Articles 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18 may
temporarily be suspended in part or in whole by the government by
means of a decree which must define and limit the scope and duration
of this measure.
Article
36. Any violation of any of the rights proclaimed in this Charter
will be punishable by laws which will determine, in each case, the
actions that may be taken in its defense before the competent
jurisdictions.
Source:
Modern History Sourcebook: The Spaniard's Charter, July 16,1945
Address
: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1945spaniardscharter.html
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