Bauzá’s constitutional defense during the exile of Máximo Santos offers a timeless warning about the dangers of using political power to override constitutional order and popular sovereignty.
After the attempt on his life, General Santos eventually resigned from the presidency and left for Europe with his family.
After General Tajes was elected, he appointed Dr. Julio Herrera y Obes as Minister of Government, a man who deeply despised Santos and exercised considerable influence over the inexperienced president.
As a result, fearing an uprising, Tajes dissolved military regiments and forced many officers into retirement.
When Santos, who had traveled to Europe to, as he put it, “take care of my health and prevent an already serious illness from becoming incurable,” attempted to return to Uruguay, he found himself barred from entering the country.
Upon arriving at Flores Island aboard the Mateo Bruzzo on February 11, 1887, he was forced to transfer to a British vessel bound for Rio de Janeiro.
At the request of the Executive Branch, Parliament had approved his exile.
Among the few voices opposing this unconstitutional measure stood Bauzá.
Not because he intended to defend the fallen Captain General personally, but because, as he argued, “constitutional virtue lies not in obeying the Constitution when it suits us, but precisely when it does not.”
Pure Logic
The Executive’s message, Bauzá argued, was driven by “an artificial current” that portrayed the country as if it were on the verge of catastrophe and sought to spread unfounded fear throughout society.
He pointed out that the best proof that no such emergency existed was the peaceful dissolution of the 5th Cazadores Regiment, considered a stronghold of Santos’ supporters.
This clearly demonstrated that there were no grounds for fearing a military insurrection.
Furthermore, the punishment proposed against Santos lacked any “form of trial and legal judgment.”
Such action would establish a dangerous precedent because these decisions would be removed from the constitutional jurisdiction assigned to them and subjected instead to “the whim of accidental parliamentary majorities.”
With this reasoning, Bauzá exposed the enormous danger of allowing temporary political majorities to make decisions contrary to the Constitution and to disregard the will of national sovereignty.
That sovereignty, as established in the Constitution of 1830 and preserved by the current Constitution, “exists in all its fullness fundamentally in the Nation.”
History has not been free from similar episodes, although they should have no place in mature democracies.
As Polybius suggested, and as popular culture later echoed, history has a tendency to repeat itself.
Only this time, it is not about a “sweet blonde doll,” but about a narrow majority with a clenched fist.
This offers a revealing example of the perverse relationship between law and politics.
In 1986 Uruguay’s democratic Parliament approved the Expiry Law, legislation comparable in spirit to the law that granted amnesty to terrorist organizations.
The law was challenged, but in 1989 a referendum confirmed the citizens’ decision to preserve it.
When the political left came to power in 2005, it began seeking ways to dismantle that law while preserving the amnesty granted to terrorists.
A campaign was launched to amend the Constitution.
In 2009, citizens rejected that proposal.
In other words, between 1989 and 2009, popular sovereignty reaffirmed the law twice.
A law approved by a Parliament elected by the people and ratified through two exercises of direct democracy.
Nevertheless, in 2011, while the left remained in government, Parliament enacted Interpretative Law No. 18,831, restoring the State’s punitive authority and opening the way for the imprisonment of military officers who had acted during the 1970s.
Bauzá warned:
“Every man invested with authority accumulates hostility against himself.
Among us, and for several years now, that explosion of resentment has taken on a terrifying character, not only because of the way it strikes those in power, but also because of the persecution unleashed against them once they leave office.
The public press serves as the barometer of this oppressive pressure, first dividing itself between supporters and opponents of the government, only to unite later in denigrating that same government after its fall.”
Revisiting these speeches is particularly worthwhile in the times we live in.
Constitutional limits.
Temporary majorities.
Popular sovereignty.
Continue reading in Global Order and Geopolitics.
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