Argentine Constitution - Key Articles

Declarations

Article 1

The Argentine Nation adopts the federal, republican, and representative form of government.

Article 2

The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion.

Article 3

The authorities of the Federal Government shall reside in the city declared Capital of the Republic, after an assignment made by one or more provincial legislatures.

Article 4

The Federal Government covers national expenses with funds from the National Treasury, composed of proceeds from import and export duties, the sale or lease of government-owned lands, postal income, and other taxes levied equitably and proportionally upon the population by the General Congress.

Article 5

Each province shall enact its own constitution under the republican representative system. Under these conditions, the Federal Government shall guarantee each province the full exercise of its institutions.

Article 6

The Federal Government may intervene in provincial territories to guarantee the republican form of government or to repel foreign invasions.

Article 7

Public acts and judicial proceedings of one province are valid in the others, and Congress may, by general laws, determine the manner of proof of these acts and proceedings.

Article 8

The citizens of each province enjoy all rights. The extradition of criminals is a reciprocal obligation among all provinces.

Article 15

Contracts for the purchase and sale of persons are a crime. Those who engage in such contracts are responsible. Slaves who, by any means, enter free territory become free by the mere fact of entering the territory of the Republic.

Article 16

The Argentine Nation admits no privileges of blood or birth, nor personal privileges or titles of nobility. All its inhabitants are equal before the law.

Article 19

Actions that do not offend public order or morality, or injure a third party, are reserved to God. No inhabitant of the Nation shall be compelled to do what the law does not demand nor deprived of what it does not prohibit.

Article 20

Foreigners enjoy within the nation's territory all the civil rights of citizens. They are not obliged to accept citizenship nor to pay extraordinary compulsory taxes.

Article 21

Every Argentine citizen is obliged to bear arms in defense of the Fatherland and the Constitution.