2. From preventing the reunion of the departmental juntas, or interfering with these in the free exercise of their functions.
3. From taking any cognizance in judicial cases; but, should public tranquillity urgently require that any individual should be taken up, a prefect may command his immediate arrest,—transferring the delinquent, accompanied with the grounds of having taken him into custody, to the judicial magistrate or judge, within the precise term of forty-eight hours.
DEPARTMENTAL JUNTAS.
In the capital of every department there is a junta, composed of two members from each province. The object of these juntas is to promote the interest of the provinces in particular, and of the departments in general. The members are elected after the same manner with those of the Congress or Chamber of Deputies.[11]
The prefects of the departments have to open the annual sessions of the juntas, to report to them in writing on the state of the public affairs of their respective jurisdictions, and to suggest such measures as appear to them calculated to promote the general advantage of the departments.
Among the functions of this political body we may enumerate—
1. To propose, discuss, and agree about the best means of promoting the agricultural, mining, and other branches of industry in their respective provinces.—2. To forward public education and instruction according to the method approved by Congress.—3. To watch over and promote charitable institutions; and, in general, all that relates to the interior police of the departments, except that of public security.—4. To proportion among the provinces the amount of the assessments of each department; and to ascertain, in case of complaint, the exact amount raised in the particular towns by their respective municipal authorities.—5. To determine the number of recruits for the service of the army and navy which each province and district should provide.—6. To take care that the chiefs of the national militia keep up good discipline in their corps, and have them always ready for service.—7. To see that the municipal corporations discharge their duties, and to inform the prefects of any abuses they may detect in them.—8. To examine the accounts which it is incumbent on the municipalities to render annually respecting the particular funds of the towns and villages.—9. To draw up every five years a statistical report of the departments.—10. To provide for the reduction and civilization of the indigenous tribes on the frontiers of any particular department, and to make it an object of special concern to allure them within the pale of civilized society by soothing and persuasive means.—11. To take cognizance of the imports and exports of the departments, and to transmit their observations thereon to the Minister of the Home Department, or Hacienda.—12. To apprise the Congress of any infraction of the constitution; and further, to elect senators from the lists presented by the provincial electoral colleges. But, to mention no more of the peculiar functions of the departmental juntas, we may conclude by observing, that such of their proceedings as hinge on the exercise of the powers or functions now enumerated, are transmitted through the medium and with the remarks of the prefects to the executive power, by whom again they are forwarded to the Congress as matters of legislative deliberation.[12]
Having premised the above articles relative to the internal government of the country in general, we shall now make some observations on the state of the very important department of Junin in particular; being able to do so, partly from personal knowledge, and partly from the report presented by the prefect of Junin, upon opening, in 1833, the session of the departmental junta in Huanuco; an official document whence we consider it incumbent upon us to draw much of the substance of the following observations, since they refer to topics with which none can be supposed to be more conversant than the head of the local government.