Constitutional lock and reset. The role of the Constitution in the current democratic crisis in Peru

Abstract

The Peruvian Constitution of 1993 has been put to the test in the events leading up to and after December 7, 2022. However, it has not played a decisive role as an instrument for ordering and pacifying the current democratic crisis in Peru, due to the fact that the Constitution itself continues to be questioned for its non-democratic origin. The danger of having a Constitution with this questioning is great, since it can generate the perception that politics and power are above or at the margin of the Constitution. When in 2003, the Constitutional Tribunal urged the Congress of the Republic to ca­rry out a partial or total reform of the Constitution, such appeal was unsuccessful. The democratic crisis in Peru is also due, to a large extent, to the fact that the current Constitution is not a source of integration, but of conflict. In this context, nothing assures that another 7-D will not happen again. There is no really weighty argument to prevent the Peruvian people, as the holders of the constituent power, from exercising their right to constitutional reinstatement in the face of the permanent constitutional blockages between the government and the parliament.