Cuba

A

Executive

Under the 1976 constitution, the president is the head of state. The president’s tenure in office is confirmed every five years by a vote of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The president is advised by a Council of Ministers composed of the executive officers of all the official government ministries; an Executive Council, made up of the president, first vice president, and five vice presidents; and the Council of State, made up of 30 members of the Cuban Communist Party. The Council of State has legislative powers when the National Assembly is in recess.

B

The Cuban Communist Party

The Cuban Communist Party (PCC) is the ideological guide of the revolution. Its influence is felt in all political institutions, work units, and neighborhoods through its various agencies, such as the Labor Confederation, the Federation of Cuban Women, and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution—neighborhood committees designed to coordinate public projects and ensure political conformity. High officials as well as common laborers may be members of the PCC. Young people can start as members of the Young Communist League and later advance into the PCC if they are selected and if they agree to join.

Fidel Castro holds the ultimate deciding power within the PCC, but the PCC contains an inner circle of members responsible for shaping and implementing government actions. The Politburo presides over the party and the Central Committee. The Politburo measures major policy decisions against Communist ideals and advises Castro, his ministers, and the legislative delegates about the ideological purity of their policies. The party’s Central Committee decides policy and collects information to make political decisions. Party members, chosen for their allegiance, hold other government offices, often as the presidents or directors of government agencies.

Every five years the PCC holds a congress at which the common people have the right to present their views. A tenet of Cuban justice is that the law is determined by popular consensus. Although a number of civil laws and the 1976 constitution were debated at local levels and ratified by referendum, in reality the central government makes the basic decisions on laws and policies.

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C

Legislature

The 1976 constitution instituted a concept known as the People’s Power construct, a structure designed to allow Cuban citizens greater participation in government policy-making decisions. The People’s Power consists of assemblies that administer government and pass laws. These assemblies exist at municipal, provincial, and national levels. Delegates are nominated and elected first at the municipal level. They need not be members of the PCC. However, the party must approve all candidates, and individuals may not run on a political platform. Instead, voters select their delegate from brief biographies and from personal acquaintance with the person. The 169 municipal assemblies allocate funds for maintenance of municipal facilities and hear cases involving household disputes and petty crime. Smaller communities with populations of 30,000 or more elect delegates to people’s councils. Members of the municipal assemblies and the people’s councils elect representatives to their provincial assemblies from their membership.

Each of Cuba’s 14 provinces has its own assembly. Provincial assemblies oversee transportation and communication systems throughout the island and recommend legislation regarding interstate crime and allocations of resources for development. From their own membership, provincial delegates nominate and elect representatives to the 601-member National Assembly of People’s Power. In 1992 the public approved a referendum calling for assembly members to be elected directly by the people. Only candidates belonging to the PCC are allowed to run.

The National Assembly votes on legislation presented by the PCC, and every four years it elects the president of the country. It occasionally debates the wisdom of legislation, but it has never failed to approve the central government’s proposals. When the National Assembly is in recess, which is most of the year, the Council of State has legislative powers.

Legislation can originate in various governmental branches. The president may decree laws that are in effect until they are accepted or rejected by the National Assembly. The Politburo and Central Committee can write legislation that is submitted to the National Assembly. And the courts can suggest legal reforms and interpretations to be enacted by the assembly.

D

Mass Organizations

The Cuban political structure depends upon popular organizations that are not officially controlled by the PCC but are closely linked to it. Every citizen may belong to several of these organizations, which correspond to major social and economic sectors. For example, the Federation of Cuban Women seeks the membership of all eligible women over the age of 16 and deals with issues in the areas of health, child care, family relations, education, and loyalty to the revolution. Farmers may join the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), which introduces agricultural technology to farmers. It also tries to resolve problems relating to transporting produce to markets from cooperatives and private farms that are not a part of the state-run system.

Workers’ issues are represented to the government by the Confederation of Cuban Laborers (CTC), and the CTC conveys government decisions to workers. It oversees labor disputes between management and workers, as the right to strike was rescinded in the 1960s. The CTC works on behalf of the government by trying to maintain high levels of production. The Young Communist League indoctrinates Cuban youth with the ideals of Communism. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution are neighborhood groups that call meetings to review the meaning of Fidel Castro’s speeches, provide neighborhood watch groups against crime, inform the neighborhood of civil and political activities, and report suspicious political behavior by local residents.

Within all of these groups, people can express their opinions and criticisms, although their views must follow revolutionary principles. Opinions are transmitted to central authorities who consider them as they make administrative decisions. One important legislative document brought before the public before its formal passage was the Family Code of 1975, which described the role of each member of a family. Massive public debate occurred and opinions were polled before the code became law. The numerous mass organizations also function as an official means of communication between the government and the people as they convey public policies to the citizenry.

E

Judiciary

The Council of State and the Ministry of Justice administer the court system. Municipal and provincial courts and the national People’s Supreme Court hear cases and interpret the law. Cuban citizens receive legal counsel from law collectives that are organized from the municipal to the national levels.

Immediately following the revolution, some jurists predicted that the need for laws and courts would disappear as Cuba more nearly approached a perfect communist state. They envisioned that the state would dissolve and people would live together harmoniously, working for the good of the whole. Norms of social behavior, not laws, would govern their actions. By 1963 jurists abandoned this reasoning because they understood that the utopian state was a long time off. By 1970 new generations of lawyers were trained to serve as counsels for national and international agencies and as civil and criminal attorneys. Between 1970 and 1971, Cuba’s legal codes were restructured to reflect its socialist government. The government issued a number of law codes to formally institutionalize the economic, social, and legal changes Castro had made by decree following the revolution.

The courts at all levels employ formally trained judges, who have attended law school, and lay judges. Lay judges do not have formal instruction from law schools, but they do receive training before assuming their responsibilities. Lay judges compose 95 percent of all sitting judges in the country. They are elected to their posts and serve for a specified period. Lay judges must demonstrate enthusiasm for their work, and they must respect the seriousness of their responsibilities, have adequate education levels, and show evidence of good moral character. They are intended to bring a nontechnical view to court considerations, where they can note mitigating circumstances that lawyer judges might not consider. The lay judges represent community values, and their contribution to deciding cases is a means of democratizing the legal system.

Military tribunals sit on cases involving infractions by military personnel. These courts, as well as civil and criminal courts, are theoretically independent from political interference and guided by military and national laws, respectively.

Political prisoners are still in Cuban jails, and it is difficult to ascertain their offenses or to gain access to the legal decisions surrounding their cases. The government occasionally releases prisoners as part of international negotiations or when the prisoners have completed their sentences. Some former political prisoners remain in Cuba, where they are reabsorbed into daily life after serving their sentences. Others may be permitted to emigrate to another country at the end of their jail time. Arrests and releases may occur for purely ideological motives. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and America’s Watch have criticized the Castro government for obstructing investigations into allegations of political arrests, mistreatment, and violations of international human rights agreements.

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