ART. 22. All Costa Ricans or foreigners have the right to terminate their civil suits by means of arbiters before or after having started legal proceedings.

ART. 23. The same judge shall not sit in different stages (instancias) in the same case.

ART. 24. No penalty shall be imposed which has not been provided previously for the crime or misdemeanor of which one may be guilty.

All penalties are personal. No torture, infamous penalties or confiscation of property shall be imposed. The latter provision does not prevent confiscation of the instruments or objects used in the commission of the crime.

ART. 25. No one shall be tried by a specially appointed commission. court or judge, except by the court designated and previously established by law.

Only those who are guilty of the crime of sedition and rebellion and the members of the army who are in active service shall be subject to military jurisdiction for crimes of any kind which they may commit. Those armed bodies, which, according to the law, are militarily regulated are to be considered as military bodies.

Ordinary courts shall take cognizance of appeals and writs of error which may be taken or brought in military cases. Any judgment or order dismissing a case can always be taken up in consultation.

ART. 26. No one shall be compelled to testify against himself in a criminal case brought against him. Nor shall his spouse, descendants, ascendants, brothers by blood or affinity be compelled to testify against the accused.

ART. 27. No penalty shall be imposed without the accused having been heard and convicted by a court, and until the judgment rendered by a competent judge or authority imposing such penalty has become final.

Physical constraint in civil matters is excepted.

ART. 28. Criminal procedure laws must secure in an efficient manner the right of defense of the accused, and consequently, the right to have his plea heard, to have his proofs admitted and to be defended by the person he may choose, and in default thereof, by a person appointed by the court.

ART. 29. Human life is inviolable.

ART. 30. No one shall be arrested without information that he has committed an offense and without written order from a judge or authority entrusted with the preservation of public order, except when the accused has been declared a fugitive from justice.

A person caught in the act may be arrested without previous order by any person for the sole purpose of bringing him before the competent authority.

No person shall be kept under arrest for more than three days without a formal warrant of arrest stating the crime which is imputed to the person arrested and the place, time and circumstances thereof, and all the facts brought out by the summary investigation. Wardens of prisons shall not receive any one as a prisoner without noting down in the register book the warrant of arrest emanating from the official who has the power to issue it. They may, however, receive as detention prisoners, those who are brought in to be presented to the judge or competent authority, but they are obliged to report to the latter within twenty-four hours.

ART. 31. Every inhabitant of the Republic is entitled to the writ of habeas corpus.

ART. 32. All persons may, in times of peace, enter or leave the Republic, travel through its territory and change their residence.

The exercise of this right of free locomotion is subject to the powers of the authority in cases of criminal, civil or police liability, and to the provisions of the law, in so far as it relates to emigration, immigration and general health or the administrative expulsion of non-desirable foreigners.

ART. 33. The dwelling of the inhabitants of the Republic is an inviolable asylum which shall only be entered in the special cases designated by law, and by virtue of an order emanating from the proper authority.

ART. 34. Postal and telegraphic correspondence is inviolable.

Private letters and papers shall only be intercepted, taken or registered by public officials through an order emanating from the proper authority in such cases and under such formalities as are established by law, and for the sole purpose of procuring legal evidence to be presented in criminal cases which are not of a political nature. Papers or private letters which are procured by any other means shall not constitute valid proof.

ART. 35. Any one may communicate his thoughts by spoken or written words or through the agency of the press without previous censoring, but shall be liable for any offense committed in the exercise of this right in such cases and manner as the law may provide.

ART. 36. All the inhabitants of the Republic have the right to assemble peacefully and without arms, for the purpose of engaging in private business or to discuss political matters, and examine the public conduct of government officials. In order to assemble in the streets, squares, and other public places, it shall be necessary to give notice to the political authorities of the place, for the puropse of preserving order.

ART. 37. The right of petition may be exercised individually or collectively. But no person or number of persons may take up the

representation of the people, assume its rights, or make petitions on its behalf. Any one doing so shall be guilty of sedition.

ART. 38. The individual guarantees set forth in the six foregoing articles shall be suspended when the Republic is in imminent peril, either by foreign aggression or by internal upheaval. The suspension shall extend to all these guarantees or to one or more of them, either throughout the whole territory of the Republic.or only in a part thereof, and shall last not more than thirty days.

The suspension shall be decreed by Congress at the request of the executive, by two thirds of the votes of the members present.

The executive shall, in regard to persons, only order their detention in a place not set apart for common culprits, or decree their confinement in inhabited and healthy places. In no case shall the executive torment or vex them. He shall report to Congress at its next session all measures taken to preserve public order or maintain the security of the State. These measures shall cease immediately after the guarantees are restored.

During the recess of Congress, the executive shall, in the Council of Ministers, decree this suspension under the terms and with the limitations aforesaid, and shall immediately report to the legislative power. The decree of suspension in the latter case shall amount to a call to Congress to convene at twelve o'clock on the day following that in which the order has been published. Should Congress not confirm this measure by a vote of two thirds of the members present, the guarantees shall be considered reestablished.

CHAPTER III.-NATIONALITY AND CITIZENSHIP.

ART. 39. The following are Costa Ricans, by birth or origin:

1. The legitimate children of a Costa Rican father, and the illegitimate children of a Costa Rican mother, wherever they may be born.

2. The illegitimate children of a foreign mother, born in Costa Rica, and under 21 years of age, acknowledged by a Costa Rican father with the consent of the mother.

3. A child born or found in Costa Rican territory whose parents or nationality are unknown.

4. The legitimate children of a foreign father and the illegitimate children of a foreign mother born in Costa Rica, who, by their own will, register in the civil registry after reaching the age of 21 years, or before reaching this age, with the consent of their father or mother.

5. The inhabitants of the Republic who have acquired the Costa Rican nationality of origin in accordance with former laws, and who have not lost this nationality afterwards in accordance with the law.

ART. 40. The following are naturalized Costa Ricans:

1. Costa Ricans who, after having lost their nationality, recover it in accordance with the law.

2. Foreigners who heretofore should have acquired the status of naturalized Costa Ricans in accordance with the law, and have not lost it.

3. A foreign woman who marries a Costa Rican. She shall retain her status even if she becomes a widow.

4. Foreigners of good conduct and with known business and means of living, who after having resided five years in the country should obtain naturalization papers in accordance with the law. The period of residence shall be reduced to one year for natives of any of the Republics of Central America.

5. Foreigners who render or have rendered important services to the State, or who are people of great ability or of great scientific or artistic culture, or who bring with themselves interesting inventions or open great establishments of positive benefit to the country shall obtain from the executive power the Costa Rican nationality, after having resided one year in Costa Rica.

Naturalization of a foreigner carries with it that of his wife and minor children under 21 years. The latter may, however, on reaching their twenty-first year, choose the nationality of origin.

ART. 41. The following lose their Costa Rican nationality:

1. Costa Ricans who become naturalized in a foreign country. 2. Those who, without the consent of the government, accept titles or decorations conferred by a foreign government, unless said titles are literary or scientific, in which case they may be freely accepted.

3. Those who, without special permission from the government. enter the military service of a foreign nation or enlist in a foreign military body.

4. The illegitimate child of a Costa Rican mother, on being acknowledged, with her consent, by his foreign father, provided that by the law of the respective country said child acquires that nationality.

5. Any Costa Rican woman who marries a foreigner. She shall preserve her foreign nationality unless, according to the law of her husband's country she does not acquire the latter's nationality, since in such case she shall continue to be a Costa Rican.

6. He who in any manner and for any reason asks for or provokes the intervention of any foreign Power against the Republic, or takes refuge in a legation or in a warship of a foreign nation or in any other place protected by the privilege of extraterritoriality, in order to elude the national laws or authorities. Costa Ricans who

lose their nationality by the first of the causes enumerated in this paragraph can never recover it.

ART. 42. No citizen or subject of a nation with which Costa Rica may be at war, nor those who have been declared in other countries to be pirates, slave traders, guilty of incendiarism, counterfeiters of coin, of bank notes, of Treasury notes or of other documents of public credit, murderers, plagiarists or robbers, shall be granted Costa Rican nationality.

ART. 43. The naturalization of a foreigner shall become void by residence in his country of origin for two consecutive years, unless he resides therein in the discharge of an official commission of the Costa Rican government or with the permission of the latter.

ART. 44. The law shall determine the means and the manner by which Costa Rican nationality may be recovered.

ART. 45. The following are the duties of Costa Ricans: to obey the Constitution and the laws, to serve and defend the country and to contribute to the public expenses. They are furthermore obliged to cause their children or wards to attend public or private schools in order to obtain primary elementary education, during the time which the law may designate.

ART. 46. Costa Rican .citizens are all male persons who, besides having the status of Costa Ricans have the following requisites:

1. To have reached the age of 21 years, or of 20 years if they have a professional title recognized by the State.

2. To own some property or to have some honest trade, the proceeds or profits of which may be sufficient to support them in relation to their social standing.

3. To be registered in the civil registry of the district where they are domiciled.

4. Beginning from 1 January 1927, in order to be a Costa Rican citizen, it shall be required furthermore to know how to read and write, or to have registered property to the value, at least, of 500 colons, or to be over 50 years of age.

ART. 47. Citizenship is lost together with Costa Rican nationality. The exercise of citizens rights may be suspended, lost and recovered for the causes designated by law.

ART. 48. Those who have lost their citizenship, except in case of treason to the country, may have their rights restored by the executive, when a petition for this grace is legally founded.

ART. 49. Foreigners enjoy in the territory of the nation the same civil rights as the citizens, and they may exercise them as the nationals.

They are under obligation to contribute to the public expenses in the manner provided by law, but not to pay extraordinary obligatory

taxes.