The judicial power of the country rests in a supreme court in departmental tribunals and in other courts previously existing. A perpetual military court-martial is to be selected by the president.
Each department of the republic has a local assembly, subject to the supervision of a governor also chosen by the president.
For the purposes of election the population of the country is divided into sections of five hundred inhabitants each, for the election of primary juntas; the citizens voting, by ticket, for one elector to every such section of five hundred. These primary electors name the parties composing the electoral college—one secondary elector to twenty of the primary. The electoral college elects the deputies to congress; and its members must have an income of not less than 500 dollars per annum.
In the November of the year before the expiration of the president's term of office, each departmental assembly, by a majority of votes—or, in the event of equal numbers, by lot—take part in selecting the president for the succeeding five years.
From the first proclamation of a federal constitution in October 1824, to the issue of
