The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba is the most important Supreme Law, which establishes the political, economic and social foundations of the Cuban State and the government. It regulates the principles of organization of State bodies, in addition to the rights, duties and fundamental guarantees of citizens, as well as their mandatory compliance.
Several Constitutions have been part of the political development of the Cuban nation. The first Constitution of the Republic in Arms was the Constitution of Guaimaro, approved on April 10, 1869. This enshrined the right to freedom and the abolition of slavery as a premise of the emancipation initiated in 1868.
The Constitution of Baraguá was the second one, considered "the smallest of the mambisas constitutions", since it only had 6 articles. It was approved after the Pact of Zanjón with the legal basis of the rationale and purposes of the Baraguá Protest. With the Protest and the Constitution, national dignity was saved and the principle of historical continuity was maintained.
The third one was the Constitution of Jimaguayú, approved on September 16, 1895, which reaffirmed the purpose of the revolution: the independence of Cuba and the creation of the independent republic with its own government. In addition, it gave legal form to the generalized revolutionary movement in the center and east of the Antillean archipelago.
The Constitution of La Yaya, the fourth mambisa constitution, was approved on October 19, 1897, maintaining the principle already stated: absolute independence and full freedom of men.
With the US intervention of the United States in the Cuban war against Spanish colonialism, a new period began in the country: the republican era. In the year 1901, the fifth bourgeois constitution was established, which consolidates and protects private property. It contains the Platt Amendment, in whose 8 clauses the ideal of the Mambises was mutilated and our people humiliated, by stating that the United States government could intervene in Cuba and impose on the government the sale or lease of the lands that they will need.
The sixth Constitution entered into force on October 10, 1940, with a democratic character. There was a progressive and advanced article, due to popular pressure and the combative participation of communist delegates, but it was still a bourgeois constitution, typical of the prevailing social system.
With the Revolution, the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba was promulgated on February 24, 1976 and has been reformed or amended in 1978, 1992 and 2002. All constitutional referendums have been characterized by great popular participation.
The ninth National Assembly of People's Power proposes a process of constitutional reform this year with the objective of updating the Magna Carta, based on the implementation of the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines, without modifying the current political system.
The preliminary draft of the new Constitution of the Republic to the 7th Plenary of the Central Committee of the Party and to the Council of State will be presented to the National Assembly of the People's Power on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of this month, with the aim of being studied by all deputies and be consulted by our people, the main architect of this process.