Cuba 2018 Draft Constitution

Title I. Political Foundations

Chapter I. Fundamental Principles of the Nation

Article 1

Cuba is a democratic, independent and sovereign socialist State, organized by all and for the good of all, as an indivisible and unitary republic, founded by the labor, dignity, and ethic of its citizens, whose essential objectives are the enjoyment of political liberty, equity, justice, and social equality, solidarity, humanism, as well as the well-being and prosperity of individuals and the collectivity.

Article 2

The name of the Cuban State is the Republic of Cuba, the official language is Spanish, and the capital is Havana.

Article 3

The defense of our socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of every Cuban. Treason is the most serious of crimes, whoever should commit treason will be subject to the most severe sanctions.

Socialism and the revolutionary political and social system, established by this Constitution, are irrevocable.

Citizens have the right to combat through any means, including armed combat when other means are not available, against any that intend to topple the political, social, and economic order established by this Constitution.

Article 4

The national symbols are the flag of the lone star, the Bayamo Anthem, and the coat of arms of the royal palm.

The law defines the attributes that identify them, their characteristics, use, and conservation.

Article 5

The Communist Party of Cuba, unique, Martiano, Fidelista, and Marxist-Leninist, the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, sustained in its democratic character as well as its permanent linkage to the people, is the superior driving force of the society and the State. It organizes and orients the communal forces towards the construction of socialism. It works to preserve and to fortify the patriotic unity of the Cuban people and to develop ethic, moral, and civic values.

Article 6

The Union of Young Communists, an organization of the vanguard Cuban youth, is recognized and supported by the State, contributes to the education of the youth in the revolutionary principles as well as the ethics of our society, and promotes their active participation in the edification of socialism.

Article 7

The Constitution is the supreme norm of the State. All are obliged to comply with it. The orders and acts of the organs of the State, their leaders, staff, and employees will act in conformity with that which is prescribed by the Constitution.

Article 8

All organs of the State, their leaders, staff, and employees have the obligation to strictly observe our socialist laws and to ensure that they are respected throughout the entire society.

Article 9

The organs of the State, their leaders, staff, and employees are obligated to respect and attend to the people, to maintain close links with the people, and to submit to their oversight in the forms established within this Constitution and the laws.

Article 10

Within the Republic of Cuba, sovereignty nontransferably resides in the people, from whom all the power of the State emanates. The people exercise this power directly or through the popular assemblies or other organs of the State that are derived from them in the form and according to the norms established by the Constitution and the laws.

Article 11

The State exercises its sovereignty:

1. Over the entire national territory, comprised of the Island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, the other adjacent islands and cays, the interior waters, and the extended maritime territories established by the law as well as the aerospace that extends over these territories;
2. Over the environment and the natural resources of the country;
3. Over the natural resources, both living and nonliving, of the waters, the seabed, and the subterranean areas within the Republic’s exclusive economic zones according to the territorial extensions set by the law and in accordance with international practices.

Article 12

The Republic of Cuba repudiates and considers illegal and void the treaties, pacts, or concessions agreed to under conditions of inequality or that alienate or diminish its sovereignty or territorial integrity.

Economic, diplomatic, and political relations with any other State may never be conducted under conditions of aggression, threat, or coercion from a foreign power.

Article 13

The State’s essential objectives include the following:

1. To channel the efforts of the nation in the construction of socialism and to strengthen national unity;
2. To maintain and to defend the independence, integrity, and the sovereignty of our homeland;
3. To preserve national security;
4. To guarantee equality in the enjoyment and exercise of rights as well as compliance with the duties consecrated in the Constitution;
5. To promote sustainable development that secures individual and collective prosperity, and to work to achieve greater levels of equity and social justice, as well as to preserve and to multiply the achievements of the Revolution;
6. To guarantee the dignity of people and their integral development;
7. To strengthen and preserve the ideology and the ethics inherent to our socialist society;
8. To protect the natural, historical, and cultural patrimony of the nation, and
9. To secure the educational, scientific, technical, and cultural development of the country.

Article 14

The socialist Cuban State recognizes and stimulates the social and mass organizations that bring together distinct sectors of the population, that represent their specific interests and that involve them in the tasks that edify, consolidate, and defend the socialist society.

The law establishes the general principles that these organizations are based upon and recognizes the practice of other associative forms.

Article 15

The State recognizes, respects, and guarantees religious liberty.

In the Republic of Cuba, the religious institutions are separate from the State and they all have the same rights and duties.

The distinct beliefs and religions will enjoy equal consideration.

Chapter II. International Relations

Article 16

The Republic of Cuba bases its international relations on the exercise of its sovereignty as well as on the antiimperialist and internationalist principles in accordance with the interests of the people and, in consequence:

1. Ratifies its aspiration for a dignified, true, and valid peace for all states, based on the respect for independence and sovereignty of the people and their right to free determination, expressed in the liberty to choose their political, social, economic, and cultural system as an essential condition to secure peaceful coexistence between nations;
2. Sustains the will to observe, without restrictions, the principles and norms that constitute international law, in particular the equality of laws, territorial integrity, the independence of states, the nonuse of threats of force in international relations, international cooperation for mutual and equal benefit and interest, the peaceful resolution of controversies on equal footing, and with respect to the other principles proclaimed in the United Nations Charter;
3. Reaffirms its will to integrate and collaborate with the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean, whose common identity and historical necessity to advance towards political and economic integration to achieve true independence, will permit us to achieve our rightful place the world;
4. Defends the unity of all countries of the third world and condemns imperialism, the enemy of peace and the people; fascism; colonialism; neocolonialism; or other forces of oppression in any form;
5. Promotes the protection and conservation of the environment as well as responding to climate change, which threatens the survival of the human species, through the recognition of common, yet differential, responsibilities; the establishment of a more just and equitable international economic order as well as the eradication of irrational patterns of production and consumption;
6. Defends and protects the enjoyment of human rights and repudiates any manifestation of racism or discrimination;
7. Condemns the direct or indirect intervention in the internal or external affairs of any State and, therefore, also condemns armed aggression, and economic, financial, or commercial blockades, as well as any other form of political or economic coercion, physical violence against persons within other countries, or any other type of interference or threat to the integrity of the states and the political, economic, or cultural elements of nations;
8. Rejects the violation of the nonrenounceable and sovereign right of all states to regulate the use of and the benefits from telecommunications within their territory, according to universal practices and to the international agreements they have subscribed to;
9. Classifies wars of aggression or conquest as an international crime, recognize the legitimacy of battles of national liberation and armed resistance to aggression, as well as to consider it our international duty to act with solidarity with the assaulted party and with the people that fight for their liberation and self-determination;
10. Promotes complete and general disarmament, rejects the existence, proliferation, or use of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction or those with similar effects, as well as cyberwarfare or the development and use of new weapons, including autonomous weapons that transgress International Humanitarian Law;
11. Repudiates and condemns terrorism in any of its manifestations, in particular, state terrorism;
12. Ratifies our commitment to the construction of a society of information and knowledge centered on the people and oriented towards sustainable development, in which all may create, consult, utilize, and share information and knowledge in order to improve their quality of life upon the foundation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter; defends the cooperation of all states and the democratization of cyberspace, and condemns its use for purposes contrary to democratization, such as the subversion and destabilization of sovereign nations;
13. Bases its relations with countries that edify socialism on fraternal friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance, established within our common objective to construct a new society;
14. Maintains friendly relations with countries that, having a different political, social, and economic system, respect our sovereignty, observe the norms of coexistence between states, abide by the principles of mutual coexistence, and adopt a reciprocal attitude with our country, and
15. Promotes multipolarity in international relations as an alternative to the domination and political, financial, and military hegemony that threaten the peace, independence, and sovereignty of peoples.

Article 17

That which is prescribed in the international treaties ratified by the Republic of Cuba will integrate into the national juridical order, in accordance with that which is established in the law.

Article 18

The Republic of Cuba, for the purpose of promoting the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, may, through treaties, attribute the exercise of the faculties required to achieve integration to supranational entities.

Article 19

The Republic of Cuba concedes asylum to those that are persecuted because of their ideals or their fights for democratic rights, against imperialism, fascism, colonialism, neocolonialism, as well as any other form of domination, discrimination, or racism; for national liberty; for the rights and demands of laborers, peasants, women, students, indigenous people, and environmentalists; for their progressive political, scientific, artistic, or literary activities as well as for socialism and peace.