International | The temptation to tinker

Dictators and utopians are fond of fiddling with constitutions

Both are bad, though for different reasons

People demonstrate against the draft of the new constitution in Santiago, on August 20, 2022. - Chile votes in a referendum on September 4, whether to approve the draft of the new constitution or not. Chile's constitutional convention, made up of 154 members who are mostly political independents, spent a year creating the new document to replace the constitution adopted during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship (1973-1990). (Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP) (Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images)
|Buenos Aires

In 2014 tunisia adopted a new constitution, three years after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country’s dictator, was ousted in a revolt. It made Tunisia into a democracy that guaranteed religious freedom and equality between men and women. With the failure of the Arab spring, Tunisia’s enlightened charter became a beacon.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “The temptation to tinker”

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