Cuban political system
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Cuban political system
Admin Qua maio 19, 2010 5:34 pm
POLICY
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The Republic of Cuba is a socialist state of workers, independent and sovereign, organized by all and for the welfare of all, as a unitary and democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual and collective welfare and human solidarity.
It is ruled by a Constitution adopted in 1976, by referendum and free and secret vote and with 96 percent of voters in favor. This Constitution was amended in 1992 and in 2002, when 8'198'237 citizens over the age of 16, in a popular plebiscite, signed in favor of the constitutional reform, ensuring the irrevocable nature of the socialist system and preventing changes altering its essential content. Moreover, the amendments make it clear that Cuba will never return to capitalism and that economic, diplomatic and political relations with any other state can never be negotiated in the face of aggression, threat or coercion from a foreign power. In a roll call vote, the 559 deputies present at the special session of Parliament (out of a total membership of 578) stood up in their seats to pronounce their "Yes," in an exercise of their right of expression, converted into unanimous approval, the resonance of which transcended the legislative benches to be heard in Cuban homes, live and direct on television and radio broadcasts of the session. Amendments of this nature require the approval of two thirds of the National
Assembly’s members
The Cuban democratic system has a large popular participation and social representation. Access to public and state positions is not reached through political competence, but through personal merits accumulated in the service to society and Nation, therefore, they should meet and report their voters on their activities periodically and, if they lose their merits, they can be revoked by them.
Candidates are postulated by the people and elected, without any campaigns and with equal conditions, from the grassroots to the Parliament, through open, direct and secret elections. Municipal delegates are elected every two years and a half and deputies every five years. Voting is not compulsory, however usually over 95 percent of adults vote. The supreme body of power is the National Assembly of People's Power, with legislative and constituent power, elected through free, direct and secret vote. It is unicameral and it has two ordinary sessions, and extraordinary sessions when they are requested by over half the total number of deputies
The National Assembly of People's Power elects, from among the deputies, the Council of State, the body that represents the Assembly when there is no ongoing session, it has a collegiate nature and, nationally and internationally it is the supreme representation of the State.
The President of the Council of State is the President of the Republic. To occupy such dignified position he has to be elected first by the people as a deputy to the Parliament and then, he should be proposed and elected by the deputies as Head of State.
The executive function of the State is carried out by the Council of Ministers that is the highest executive and administrative body and represents the Government of the Republic. Their members are appointed by the National Assembly at the proposal of the Council of State.
The Supreme Court and the other courts are in charge of the legal issues. Courts are a system of state bodies, structured with functional independence from any other body and hierarchically subordinated to the National Assembly of People's Power and the Council of State.
For more information, please, see:
The Cuban Government official web site
The National Assambly of People's Power official web site
HUMAN RIGHTS
FOR CUBANS
The human rights of Cubans are consecrated on the Constitution of the Republic. They are not declarative goals but practical accomplishments that have placed the Cuban people among the freest, most educated, healthiest and most dignified and fully-fledged peoples of the world.
As in every sovereign, free and independent state, these liberties and rights are enjoyed within the context established by the Constitution itself, the laws and the goals of the society, so they can not be used against what is already established, as it is stated in the article 62 of the Constitution and in the article 30 of the very Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
These rights include:
- The right to life.
- The right to work and its just remuneration.
- The right to rest with pay.
- The right to social security.
- The right to protection, security and hygiene of work.
- The right to healthcare and protection.
- The right to free education.
- The right to physical education, sports and recreation.
- The right to freedom of expression and press.
- The right to assembly and association, including the unconditional rights to initiatives and criticism.
- Right to freedom of conscience and religion, freedom to change his religion or belief, and profess his preferred worship.
- The right to the inviolability of domicile.
- The right to the inviolability of mail and communications.
- The right to the inviolability of the human person.
- The right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
- The right to not be prosecuted or sentenced by a relevant court by virtue of laws prior to the crime.
- The right to unbiased and just defense in oral public trial.
- The right that violence, coercion or pressures are not used against a defendant or prisoner.
- The right to address complaints and requests to the authorities and to receive answers.
- The right to participate in the defense of the Country, to have a weapon, a place and a way to defend his country.
The National Assembly of People's Power, through its Committees for Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Attention to the Population, as well as the Courts and the social and non-governmental organizations all together keep watch over the full practice of these rights and channel citizens' claims and complaints.
The Center for the Study of the People's Opinions is an additional mechanism for the control and information to the top leadership of the country on the population's opinion, its concerns and interests, its criticism, as well as its dissatisfactions regarding the Government performance at any level of society.
There are also ways of public consultation and citizen participation through which Cubans exercise their rights, control governmental, politic and economic activity.
FROM CUBANS
In Cuba there is a work experience supporting human rights that is barely known. The country has cooperated and has the willingness to continue to cooperate in the context of the United Nations with the different mechanisms, without selectivity, without manipulations and without politicization.
Over the years, we have enhanced our cooperation with the established mechanisms and have kept dialogue with different states.
Cuba was the first country that invited the High Commissioner, Ambassador José Ayala Lazo. We have also invited the Special Rapporteurs on Mercenarism and on Violence against Women.
Cuba has received numerous recognition gestures by the Secretary of the UN Human Rights Commission for its willingness to report and provide requested information. Likewise, Cuba answers periodical reports of other UN bodies such as the Conventions on Torture, on Racism, on the Rights of the Child, and on the Rights of Women.
Out of the 25 human rights instruments acknowledged by the Human Rights Commission and by the Office of the High Commissioner Cuba determined to adhere to 16, and it did the same with all the instruments (12) devoted to fight terrorism.
1. Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
2. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
3. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
4. International Convention against Apartheid in Sports.
5. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
6. Convention on Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
7. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
8. Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.
9. Convention on the Political Rights of Women.
10. Convention on the Nationality of Married Women.
11. Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages.
12. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
13. 1926 Slavery Convention and 1953 Protocol Amending the Slavery Convention
14. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery the Slave Trade, and Institutions.
15. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.
16. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
As a matter of comparison, Cuba is part of 37 Human Rights Instruments of 54 existing, the European Union is part of 22 and the United States of 15. Nevertheless, Cuba is willing to enhance its membership to the different human rights mechanisms and has announced that it intends to adhere soon to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
DEATH PENALTY
Currently, there are 83 countries in the world with the death penalty still in force in their legislation, only 57 have abolished it and 15 use it to punish common offences.
In Cuba, death penalty is exceptionally applied. Death penalties that have survived all legal resources go to the Council of State to be ratified, so no court can apply it.
Though Cuba lives an exceptional situation of harassment and aggression, the country aspires that one day and by their own decision death penalty can be abolished.
Of curse, in the country there are no tortures, extrajudicial murders or missing people. The Revolution eradicated them in 1958.
ANTI-CUBAN RESOLUTION IN GENEVA
Since 1994, the United States of America, in their urge for overthrowing the constitutional government and the political system that the Cuban people has freely chosen and defended at all costs, have imposed, through political manipulations and outrageous and humiliating pressures, a resolution against Cuba at the UN Human Rights Commission, in Geneva.
It is an immoral practice on the side of the Administration of the power that has organized and carried out, or financed and protected the lengthy economic warfare during the last 40 years, the Blockade, Aggressions and terrorist acts that have cost the lives of thousands of Cubans and the damage they have caused is over 181 billion dollars.
The countries supporting this political vendetta are turning, this way, into accomplices of the mass and blatant violation of the human rights of the Cuban people.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Republic of Cuba is a socialist state of workers, independent and sovereign, organized by all and for the welfare of all, as a unitary and democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual and collective welfare and human solidarity.
It is ruled by a Constitution adopted in 1976, by referendum and free and secret vote and with 96 percent of voters in favor. This Constitution was amended in 1992 and in 2002, when 8'198'237 citizens over the age of 16, in a popular plebiscite, signed in favor of the constitutional reform, ensuring the irrevocable nature of the socialist system and preventing changes altering its essential content. Moreover, the amendments make it clear that Cuba will never return to capitalism and that economic, diplomatic and political relations with any other state can never be negotiated in the face of aggression, threat or coercion from a foreign power. In a roll call vote, the 559 deputies present at the special session of Parliament (out of a total membership of 578) stood up in their seats to pronounce their "Yes," in an exercise of their right of expression, converted into unanimous approval, the resonance of which transcended the legislative benches to be heard in Cuban homes, live and direct on television and radio broadcasts of the session. Amendments of this nature require the approval of two thirds of the National
Assembly’s members
The Cuban democratic system has a large popular participation and social representation. Access to public and state positions is not reached through political competence, but through personal merits accumulated in the service to society and Nation, therefore, they should meet and report their voters on their activities periodically and, if they lose their merits, they can be revoked by them.
Candidates are postulated by the people and elected, without any campaigns and with equal conditions, from the grassroots to the Parliament, through open, direct and secret elections. Municipal delegates are elected every two years and a half and deputies every five years. Voting is not compulsory, however usually over 95 percent of adults vote. The supreme body of power is the National Assembly of People's Power, with legislative and constituent power, elected through free, direct and secret vote. It is unicameral and it has two ordinary sessions, and extraordinary sessions when they are requested by over half the total number of deputies
The National Assembly of People's Power elects, from among the deputies, the Council of State, the body that represents the Assembly when there is no ongoing session, it has a collegiate nature and, nationally and internationally it is the supreme representation of the State.
The President of the Council of State is the President of the Republic. To occupy such dignified position he has to be elected first by the people as a deputy to the Parliament and then, he should be proposed and elected by the deputies as Head of State.
The executive function of the State is carried out by the Council of Ministers that is the highest executive and administrative body and represents the Government of the Republic. Their members are appointed by the National Assembly at the proposal of the Council of State.
The Supreme Court and the other courts are in charge of the legal issues. Courts are a system of state bodies, structured with functional independence from any other body and hierarchically subordinated to the National Assembly of People's Power and the Council of State.
For more information, please, see:
The Cuban Government official web site
The National Assambly of People's Power official web site
HUMAN RIGHTS
FOR CUBANS
The human rights of Cubans are consecrated on the Constitution of the Republic. They are not declarative goals but practical accomplishments that have placed the Cuban people among the freest, most educated, healthiest and most dignified and fully-fledged peoples of the world.
As in every sovereign, free and independent state, these liberties and rights are enjoyed within the context established by the Constitution itself, the laws and the goals of the society, so they can not be used against what is already established, as it is stated in the article 62 of the Constitution and in the article 30 of the very Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
These rights include:
- The right to life.
- The right to work and its just remuneration.
- The right to rest with pay.
- The right to social security.
- The right to protection, security and hygiene of work.
- The right to healthcare and protection.
- The right to free education.
- The right to physical education, sports and recreation.
- The right to freedom of expression and press.
- The right to assembly and association, including the unconditional rights to initiatives and criticism.
- Right to freedom of conscience and religion, freedom to change his religion or belief, and profess his preferred worship.
- The right to the inviolability of domicile.
- The right to the inviolability of mail and communications.
- The right to the inviolability of the human person.
- The right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
- The right to not be prosecuted or sentenced by a relevant court by virtue of laws prior to the crime.
- The right to unbiased and just defense in oral public trial.
- The right that violence, coercion or pressures are not used against a defendant or prisoner.
- The right to address complaints and requests to the authorities and to receive answers.
- The right to participate in the defense of the Country, to have a weapon, a place and a way to defend his country.
The National Assembly of People's Power, through its Committees for Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Attention to the Population, as well as the Courts and the social and non-governmental organizations all together keep watch over the full practice of these rights and channel citizens' claims and complaints.
The Center for the Study of the People's Opinions is an additional mechanism for the control and information to the top leadership of the country on the population's opinion, its concerns and interests, its criticism, as well as its dissatisfactions regarding the Government performance at any level of society.
There are also ways of public consultation and citizen participation through which Cubans exercise their rights, control governmental, politic and economic activity.
FROM CUBANS
In Cuba there is a work experience supporting human rights that is barely known. The country has cooperated and has the willingness to continue to cooperate in the context of the United Nations with the different mechanisms, without selectivity, without manipulations and without politicization.
Over the years, we have enhanced our cooperation with the established mechanisms and have kept dialogue with different states.
Cuba was the first country that invited the High Commissioner, Ambassador José Ayala Lazo. We have also invited the Special Rapporteurs on Mercenarism and on Violence against Women.
Cuba has received numerous recognition gestures by the Secretary of the UN Human Rights Commission for its willingness to report and provide requested information. Likewise, Cuba answers periodical reports of other UN bodies such as the Conventions on Torture, on Racism, on the Rights of the Child, and on the Rights of Women.
Out of the 25 human rights instruments acknowledged by the Human Rights Commission and by the Office of the High Commissioner Cuba determined to adhere to 16, and it did the same with all the instruments (12) devoted to fight terrorism.
1. Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
2. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
3. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
4. International Convention against Apartheid in Sports.
5. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
6. Convention on Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
7. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
8. Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.
9. Convention on the Political Rights of Women.
10. Convention on the Nationality of Married Women.
11. Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages.
12. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
13. 1926 Slavery Convention and 1953 Protocol Amending the Slavery Convention
14. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery the Slave Trade, and Institutions.
15. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.
16. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
As a matter of comparison, Cuba is part of 37 Human Rights Instruments of 54 existing, the European Union is part of 22 and the United States of 15. Nevertheless, Cuba is willing to enhance its membership to the different human rights mechanisms and has announced that it intends to adhere soon to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
DEATH PENALTY
Currently, there are 83 countries in the world with the death penalty still in force in their legislation, only 57 have abolished it and 15 use it to punish common offences.
In Cuba, death penalty is exceptionally applied. Death penalties that have survived all legal resources go to the Council of State to be ratified, so no court can apply it.
Though Cuba lives an exceptional situation of harassment and aggression, the country aspires that one day and by their own decision death penalty can be abolished.
Of curse, in the country there are no tortures, extrajudicial murders or missing people. The Revolution eradicated them in 1958.
ANTI-CUBAN RESOLUTION IN GENEVA
Since 1994, the United States of America, in their urge for overthrowing the constitutional government and the political system that the Cuban people has freely chosen and defended at all costs, have imposed, through political manipulations and outrageous and humiliating pressures, a resolution against Cuba at the UN Human Rights Commission, in Geneva.
It is an immoral practice on the side of the Administration of the power that has organized and carried out, or financed and protected the lengthy economic warfare during the last 40 years, the Blockade, Aggressions and terrorist acts that have cost the lives of thousands of Cubans and the damage they have caused is over 181 billion dollars.
The countries supporting this political vendetta are turning, this way, into accomplices of the mass and blatant violation of the human rights of the Cuban people.
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