The norm for transgenics in Bolivia is appealed before the Constitutional
The decree authorizing tests with transgenics in Bolivia was appealed this Tuesday before the country's Constitutional Court, by a senator who called it a "health attack".
Senator María Elizabeth Oporto, from the Movement to Socialism (MAS), explained to the media in Sucre, the country's capital and seat of the judiciary, that the unconstitutionality action is based on the fact that the presidential decree does not respect norms such as the Constitution itself and international treaties signed by the country.
The objective is for the decree to be null and void, according to the legislator, who argued that the Constitution establishes that the use of genetically modified organisms must be regulated by law in Bolivia, not as in this case by a presidential regulation.
Another senator of the MAS, Sonia Chiri, announced for her part a bill to prohibit the importation of what she described as "agrochemical toxins."
These actions of the MAS, which has a parliamentary majority, coincide with critical arguments towards the decree that have been emerging in Bolivia since the rule was known last week, such as those used by the Ombudsman, who questions that the parliamentary process was skipped and it favors only "some productive sectors".
The decree of the interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, authorizes "exceptionally" and with "abbreviated procedures" that genetically modified corn, sugar cane, cotton, wheat and soybeans be investigated, both for domestic consumption and for export .
The norm was published in the official gazette without institutionally publicizing it and represents a radical change regarding the anti-GMO policy during the almost fourteen years in power of Evo Morales.
The decision is praised by groups such as the Bolivian Oilseed and Wheat Producers Association, an important agro-industrial collective, especially in Santa Cruz, the country's main agricultural region, but rejected by environmental, social, consumer and professional associations, among others. .
