Puerto Rico, with input from the U.S. Congress, produced a constitution for the territory on July 25, 1952. The constitution made no change in the political status of Puerto Rico. The island remained a U.S. territory.
However, as Rafael Cox Alomar recently pointed out, “Puerto Rico’s governmental authorities, emboldened by the island’s removal from the United Nations’s list of non-self-governing territories in 1953, described the overall political relationship between the people of Puerto Rico and Congress as one premised on a bilateral compact, alterable only by mutual consent of the parties.”
No such compact existed. It was a myth from the beginning. Cox Alomar suggests that “PROMESA was the last nail in the compact mythology’s coffin.” PROMESA’s Financial Oversight and Management Board can outrank the territory’s elected officials and countermand their decisions, confirming the fact that Puerto Rico is still under the Territorial Clause, subject to the plenary power of Congress.
What’s special about Puerto Rico’s Constitution?
The biggest difference between the U.S. Constitution and Puerto Rico’s constitution is the Bill of Rights. Congress required Puerto Rico to include a Bill of Rights in its constitution, but the territory did not model its Bill of Rights on that of the United States. Instead, Puerto Rico’s Bill of Right was based on the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Cox Alomar points out a number of differences;
- Puerto Rico’s constitution includes a stated right to privacy.
- It lays out extensive protections for prisoners, including forbidding the death penalty.
- It mandates a complete separation of church and state.
- Until Congress removed these elements of the Bill of Rights, it included rights to education, work, food, clothing, housing, medical care, and many more aspects of social justice.
- It still includes statements of workers’ rights.
Cox Alomar delineates other differences having to do with the structure of the government, as well as examples of court decisions based on the document. In the end, though, he concludes that “the constitutional experiment of 1952 is exhausted.” His conclusion is based on the recognition that Puerto Rico’s constitution is outranked — as are the constitutions of the states — by the U.S. Constitution. When the two are in conflict, the federal constitution always supersedes the territorial constitution.
What does the Puerto Rican constitution mean today?
Just as every state has a constitution, Puerto Rico’s constitution provides the basis for legal decisions in the territory. It is overruled when it conflicts with the nation’s constitution, again just like the states. If Puerto Rico becomes a state, it already has a constitution approved by Congress and need not make changes. If it were to become an independent nation, it might choose to keep its current or its original constitution and that would become the law of the land.
As a territory, Puerto Rico’s constitution is still a source of pride. It has no effect on the Island’s political status, but it makes statements about Puerto Rico’s ideology and intentions.
