Group seeks Constitutional amendment to allow citizens to sack legislators, president by referendum

July 7^th, 2015 (InsideCostaRica.com) A group known as Costa Rica Manda appeared before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) last week to seek permission to begin collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment that would allow the country’s electorate to remove legislators from office – including the President of the Republic – by way of national referendum.

Douglas Caamaño, spokesperson for Costa Rica Manda, told CRHoy.com that their movement hopes to amend Article 11 of Costa Rica’s constitution to permit the possibility of a national referendum to remove elected officials in such cases where they have “lost their legitimacy to hold the office.”

“The Constitution gives us as citizens a civic duty to freely and democratically elect our leaders, however if these leaders elected by popular vote do not perform or fail to perform satisfactorily, we are not allowed to remove them,” Caamaño told CRHoy.com.

The issue will be sent to the Office of Technical Studies of the Legislative Assembly, where the phrasing of the question presented to voters in the case of a possible referendum for the amendment will be examined.

Once that process is complete, the group will have nine months to collect 145,000 signatures in support of a national referendum on the proposed amendment.