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 .^ 436 A HISTORY OF CHILE select seven members from each chamber, who shall compose the Standing Committee, which shall form a single body, and whose functions cease de facto on the 31st of the following May. Art. 58 The Standing Committee, as the representative of the Congress, shall exercise supervision over matters pertaining to that body, in so far as concerns all branches of public administration, and it is there- fore its duty: ist. To watch over the observance of the constitution and the laws, and afford protection to individual rights. 2d. To make to the President of the Republic such representations as shall conduce to said ends, and to repeat the same if the former shall not have been sufiBcient. When such representations relate to abuses or illegal acts committed by the authorities responsible to the President of the Republic, and he adopts none of the measures within his authority to put an end to such abuses and to punish the officials guilty of the same, it shall be under- stood that the President and the Minister of the respective department accept the responsibility for the acts of their subordinates, as if they had been done by their order or consent. 3d. To grant or refuse its consent to such acts of the President of the Republic as, according to the provisions of this constitution, must be done with the knowledge and consent of the Standing Committee. 4th. To request the President of the Republic to convoke the Congress in extraordinary session, whenever, in its judgment, such action is demanded by extraordinary and exceptional circumstances. 5th. To render an account to Congress, at its first meetmg, of the measures taken by it in the discharge of its office. The committee is responsible to Congress for an omission to fulfill the duties imposed upon it by the preceding paragraphs. CHAPTER VIII — The president of the republic. Art. 59 A citizen with the title of "President of the Republic of Chile" is the head of the administration of the state and supreme chief of the Nation. Art. 60 To become President of the Republic it is necessary? ist. To have been born in the territory of Chile; 2d. To be eligible as a member of the Chamber of Deputies; 3d. To be at least thirty years of age.