The Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 1980 () is the fundamental law currently in force in Chile. It was drafted under the military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet, approved in a disputed plebiscite on September 11, 1980, and formally promulgated on October 21, 1980, with an original text of 120 articles and 29 transitory provisions. The constitution took effect under a transitional regime on March 11, 1981, and entered into full force on March 11, 1990, with the return to electoral democracy.
Since 1990, the constitution has been amended repeatedly — by one count, close to 70 times through 52 separate reform laws, altering a cumulative 257 articles as of 2023. The most far-reaching of these reforms, enacted in 2005 under President Ricardo Lagos, removed several provisions associated with the dictatorship, including appointed and lifetime senators and the armed forces' constitutional role as guarantor of the political order. As of early 2026, the amended text comprises 161 articles organized into fifteen chapters, together with 54 transitory provisions.
Following the 2019–2021 Chilean protests, Chile undertook two consecutive attempts to replace the 1980 constitution altogether. A Constitutional Convention, elected in 2021, produced a draft that voters rejected in a September 2022 referendum. A second process, combining an appointed Expert Commission and an elected Constitutional Council, produced a further draft that voters rejected in a December 2023 referendum. With no additional referendum planned, the 1980 constitution, as amended, remains in force.
The constitution's origins continue to be debated. Its drafters were appointed exclusively by the military government, opponents of the regime were excluded from the drafting process, and the 1980 ratifying plebiscite was conducted without an electoral register and under restrictions on political campaigning, leading many scholars and political actors to question its democratic legitimacy notwithstanding the numerous amendments made since 1990.
Background
The Commission for the Study of the New Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile, commonly known as the Ortúzar Commission, was established in 1973 by the Government Junta that took power after the coup against President Salvador Allende. Chaired by Enrique Ortúzar Escobar, a former Minister of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Jorge Alessandri, the commission met from September 24, 1973, to October 5, 1978, with a mandate to draft a preliminary constitutional text. A declassified document dated September 13, 1973 — two days after the coup — indicates that commission member Jaime Guzmán had already been assigned by the Junta to study the drafting of a new constitution.
Members of the commission included Rafael Eyzaguirre Echeverría (secretary), Sergio Diez Urzúa, Enrique Evans de la Cuadra, Jaime Guzmán Errázuriz, Gustavo Lorca Rojas, Jorge Ovalle Quiroz, Alejandro Silva Bascuñán, Alicia Romo Román, and Raúl Gormaz Molina, later joined by Luz Bulnes Aldunate, Raúl Bertelsen Repetto, and Juan de Dios Carmona.
Contrary to a common perception, the Ortúzar Commission was not a constituent assembly and did not itself draft the 1980 Constitution. It produced a preliminary draft that was subsequently reviewed by the Council of State — chaired by former president Jorge Alessandri, with Ortúzar's participation — which introduced further changes between 1978 and 1980. The Government Junta then made additional modifications before submitting the final text to the 1980 plebiscite. Even so, much of the eventual constitutional text originated in debates conducted within the commission, though many of its specific proposals were altered or discarded at later stages.
Adoption and entry into force (1980–1990) In an address on August 10, 1980, Pinochet called on Chileans over the age of 18 to approve the proposed text in the coming plebiscite, describing it as grounded in personal liberty, private ownership of the means of production, and free economic initiative within a subsidiary state, and presenting the vote as the next step in the process begun by the 1973 coup. The text was submitted to voters in the 1980 Chilean constitutional referendum and reported approved, with roughly 69 percent voting in favor. The plebiscite was criticized for significant irregularities: no electoral register existed, since the previous rolls had been destroyed after the coup, and opposition groups faced substantial restrictions on public campaigning, with limited or no access to television and radio. Reporting at the time and later research documented hundreds of allegations of fraud, including systematic double voting by intelligence agents, though the government's official result was never overturned. The constitution took effect on March 11, 1981, though its validity was not recognized by some sectors of Chilean society.
Under the transitory provisions set by the new constitution, the Government Junta held legislative and constituent powers between 1981 and 1990 — the latter subject to ratification by plebiscite — while Pinochet held the presidency and the courts continued to operate as they had since the start of the dictatorship. In 1988, the constitution's mechanism for the succession of the presidency was triggered through a plebiscite in which a majority of voters rejected an additional eight-year term for Pinochet, leading to presidential and congressional elections the following year.
Ahead of the 1989 parliamentary elections, the Concertación and right-wing parties negotiated a package of 54 constitutional reforms, approved in a plebiscite on July 30, 1989. Among the most consequential changes, the reform eliminated Article 8, which had proscribed political parties or movements deemed "totalitarian" or based on class struggle; removed the president's power to exile citizens; preserved access to habeas corpus and other protective remedies during states of emergency; ended the requirement that party membership rolls be public; eased incompatibilities between union leadership and party membership; balanced military and civilian representation on the National Security Council; eliminated the president's power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; and lowered the quorum for organic constitutional laws from three-fifths to four-sevenths, while raising the quorum for amending certain chapters from three-fifths to two-thirds. Together with the Concertación's victory in the 1989 presidential election, which brought Patricio Aylwin to office in 1990, this reform package led most political and social sectors — with the notable exception of the Communist Party of Chile and other extra-parliamentary left-wing groups — to accept the constitution as a working framework, even as calls for its eventual replacement continued.
Structure and content As amended, the 1980 Constitution is organized into fifteen chapters:
Bases of Institutionality (arts. 1–9): sets out foundational principles, including national sovereignty, representative democracy, the unitary form of the state, a tendency toward administrative decentralization, and the principles of legality and state responsibility. Nationality and Citizenship (arts. 10–18): governs the acquisition of Chilean nationality by descent, birth in Chile, naturalization, or grant by law; grounds for loss of nationality; the right to appeal an arbitrary denial of nationality to the Supreme Court; and the rules of citizenship and suffrage. Constitutional Rights and Duties (arts. 19–23): the constitution's bill of rights, including the right to life, equality before the law, freedom of conscience and expression, freedom of association, and the right to property, together with a guarantee that legislation may not affect the essential content of these rights. This chapter also establishes the recurso de protección, a judicial remedy for the enforcement of certain constitutional guarantees against arbitrary or unlawful acts. Government (arts. 24–45): establishes the President of the Republic as head of state and government, the method of presidential election, presidential powers, rules governing cabinet ministers, the basic framework for state administration, and states of constitutional exception. National Congress (arts. 46–75): establishes a bicameral Congress composed of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, with rules on their composition, member qualifications, respective and joint powers, procedure, and lawmaking. Judicial Power (arts. 73–80): establishes the courts subordinate to the Supreme Court, with jurisdiction over judicial matters within Chilean territory. Public Prosecutor's Office (arts. 83–91): establishes the Ministerio Público, its organization, the appointment of its members, and its powers. Constitutional Court (arts. 92–94): establishes the Constitutional Court of Chile, the method of appointing its members, its powers, and the binding force of its rulings. Electoral Service and Electoral Justice (arts. 94 bis–97): sets out the basic framework of the Electoral Service and electoral justice. Office of the Comptroller General (arts. 98–100): establishes the autonomous Comptroller General's office and the appointment of its members. Armed Forces, Order, and Public Security (arts. 101–105): governs the armed forces and police, promotions, and the appointment of the commanders-in-chief. National Security Council (arts. 106–107): establishes an advisory body to the president on matters within its competence. Central Bank (arts. 108–109): sets out the basic framework for the autonomous, technical Central Bank of Chile. Government and Internal Administration of the State (arts. 110–126 bis): governs regional, provincial, and municipal government and administration, recognizing Easter Island and the Juan Fernández Islands as special territories. Amendment of the Constitution and Procedure for Drafting a New Constitution (arts. 127–161): sets the procedures and quorums for amending the constitution. Amendment bills may be initiated by presidential message or by a member of Congress and generally require approval by four-sevenths of sitting deputies and senators in each chamber. Although the constitution as originally adopted contained no mechanism for its wholesale replacement, this chapter was reformed in late 2019 to create such a procedure (arts. 130–143) and again in early 2023 to establish a second procedure (arts. 144–161), following the 2022 referendum's rejection of the first draft.
Amendments under democratic governments (1990–2018)
1990–1999 Under President Patricio Aylwin, reforms in 1991 modified provisions on terrorist conduct and on regional and municipal government and administration. Under President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the original eight-year presidential term was shortened to six years in 1994, and a series of reforms in 1997 created the Public Prosecutor's Office as part of criminal-procedure reform and altered the composition of the Supreme Court and other judicial appointments. Reforms in 1999 replaced gendered language in the constitution's text (substituting "los hombres" with "las personas") to reinforce the principle of equality before the law between men and women, established a state duty to promote early-childhood education, and modified rules on presidential runoff elections. Under President Ricardo Lagos, a 2003 reform made secondary education compulsory and free through age 21.
2005 comprehensive reform