THE CONSTITUTION OF BRAZIL
SEPTEMBER 24, 1946
We, the representatives of the Brazilian people, assembled under the protection of God, in
Constituent Assembly to organize a democratic regime, decree and promulgate the following.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL
Title One
THE FEDERAL ORGANIZATION
Chapter I
Preliminary Provisions
Art. 1—The United States of Brazil maintain, under the representative system, the Federation and the Republic.
All power emanates from the people and shall be exercised in its name.
§1. The Union includes, in addition to the States, the Federal District and the Territories.
§2. The Federal District is the capital of the Union.
Art. 2—The States may merge with one another, subdivide, or partition in order to annex themselves to others or to form new States, by vote of the respective legislative assemblies, plebescite of the populations directly concerned and approval of the National Congress.
Art. 3—The Territories may, by special law, constitute themselves into States, subdivide into new Territories or restore themselves as part of the States from which they were separated.
Art. 4—Brazil shall resort to war only in case of non-applicability or failure of resort to arbitration or pacific means of solution of the conflict, regulated by any international security organization in which it may participate; and in no case shall it embark on a war of conquest, directly or indirectly, alone or in alliance with another State.
Art. 5—The Union shall have power:
I—to maintain relations with foreign States and to make treaties and conventions with them;
II—to declare war and make peace;
III—to decree, extend and suspend state of siege;
IV—to organize the armed forces, the security of the frontiers and the external defense;
V—to permit foreign forces to pass through national territory or, for reasons of war, to remain therein temporarily;
VI—to authorize the production and control the commerce of war material;
VII—to superintend, throughout the national territory, the services of maritime, air and frontier police;
VIII—to coin and issue money and establish banks of issue;
IX—to control the operations of establishments of credit, capitalization and of insurance;
X—to establish the national plan of transport;
XI—to maintain the postal service and the national air mail;
XII—to develop, directly or through authorization or concession, the services of telegraphs, radio communication, radio broadcasting, interstate and international telephones, air navigation, and railways connecting seaports and national frontiers or crossing the boundaries of a State;
XIII—to organize permanent defense against the effects of drought, rural endemic diseases and floods;
XIV—to grant amnesty;
XV—to legislate upon:
a)—civil, commercial, penal, processual, electoral, aeronautical and labor law;
b)—general norms of law with respect to finance; insurance and social security; defense and protection of health; and penitentiary system;
c)—production and consumption;
d)—policies and bases of national education;
e)—public registries and commercial boards;
f)—organization, instruction, justice and guaranties of the military police and general conditions of their utilization by the Federal Government in cases of mobilization or of war;
g)—expropriation;
h)—civil and military requisitions in time of war;
i)—system of ports and of coastwise navigation;
j)—interstate traffic;
k)—foreign and interstate commerce; institutions of credit, exchange and transfer of values abroad;
l)—subsoil wealth, mining, metallurgy, waters, electric energy, forests, hunting and fishing;
m)—monetary and standard measures systems, title and guarantee of metals;
n)—naturalization, entry, extradition and expulsion of foreigners;
o)—emigration and immigration;
p)—conditions of capacity for the exercise of the technical, scientific and liberal professions;
q)—use of the national symbols;
r)—incorporation of aborigines into the national community.
Art. 6—The federal power to legislate upon the matters of Art. 5, Number XV, letters b, c, d, f, h, j, l, o, and r does not exclude supplementary or complementary state legislation.
Art. 7—The Federal Government shall not intervene in the States except:
I—to maintain the national integrity;
II—to repel foreign invasion or that of one State in another;
III—to suppress civil war;
IV—to guarantee the free exercise of any of the state powers;
V—to insure the execution of judicial orders or decisions;
VI—to reorganize the finances of any State which, without reasons of force majeure, may suspend for more than two consecutive years services on its funded external debt;
VII—to assure the observance of the following principles:
a)—representative republican form;
b)—independence and harmony of powers;
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