By Wilfredo Vallín Almeida
Some Cuban citizens came to the Cuban Legal Association (AJC) seeking information and advice regarding a current issue: non-agricultural co-operatives.
It relates to forming a cooperative with a group of compatriots who–until now–have been state workers and would become members in this new modality.
But clearly they do not have the slightest idea what it is and they have not been properly informed about it.
It was nice that this morning we had a hearing in the Supreme Court related to legal recognition of the AJC as an independent NGO. The funny thing is that our counterpart there suggested, among its arguments, that all Cuban workers have at their disposal the information possible and necessary with regards to legal issues that affect that or that they would like to know about. And that was another reason that the AJC doesn’t need to exist.
Obviously there is a serious contradiction between our counterpart and the presence of these people asking us for appropriate advice.
Those living in the city, among other things, need to know
What elements are required for the existence of this form of economics, without which we can be in the presence of something, but not of a true cooperative as it is understood in the world.
What is free contracting and how does it relates to the issue of cooperatives.
What are the inalienable rights of workers in the preparation of documents that create the cooperative and its statutes.
What comparative examples do we have as background to have a broader and more accurate range of information on the matter.
What is the concept of cooperative ownership and the use, enjoyment and disposition that cooperatives have regarding it.
And some more that I will not put here so as to keep this brief.
I want to believe that what happened five years ago will not happen now, when the omnipresent and all-knowing came to tell us that WE COULD NOT EXPLAIN to our compatriots the rights which the Criminal Code of Procedure Act confers unto them.
Are these times any different from any previous ones?
We shall see.
Translated by: Shane J. Cassidy
16 October 2013
