Article Second. On Deputies

311. Deputies can be elected to the assemblies of the kingdom or of the province or of the municipality. Indeed these things apply to all, proportion having been preserved, but chiefly to deputies to the assemblies of the kingdom, to whom belongs the power of making laws. In like manner it makes no difference whether the government is liberal or Catholic, provided it is legitimate.

Their obligations. 1. Deputies legitimately elected are bound from legal justice to accept this office, unless they are excused on account of grave inconvenience, provided they are suitable.

a. Therefore those who on account of defect of knowledge or prudence or probity are unfit for this office can neither seek nor accept the office of deputy without sin, because they expose themselves to the danger of inflicting grave damage upon the republic.

b. Suitable persons not accepting the office without just cause sin against legal justice: for although the damages which by accepting the office they could have impeded, but did not impede, can be imputed to them, nevertheless they are not guilty of violated commutative justice but of legal justice.

2. They are bound to have sufficient knowledge so that they can rightly discharge their office, namely without danger of inflicting damage upon the republic or of approving wicked laws and decisions.

a. Therefore they ought to know wherein consists the end and true good of the republic, what the rights of the Catholic Church are, what the relation between the Church and civil society is, and what the obligations of civil society toward the Church are.

b. Before the exercise of the office in individual sessions, they are bound by study and by taking counsel to render themselves fit for handling the affairs which will be proposed in the assemblies, or at least to seek a suitable guide whom they can follow with a safe conscience.

3. Of themselves they are bound to be present at sessions and to cast a vote for the common good.

a. They are excused: alpha. if notable damage is not to be feared from their absence; beta. if by attending they would have to undergo grave inconvenience; gamma. if they foresee that their presence and vote will be of no utility.

b. Therefore they ought to beware: alpha. lest led by vain respect toward the ministers of the kingdom or pursuing private advantages they cast a wicked vote; beta. lest they prefer the advantages of the nation to the common good.

c. Since by office they are bound to impede damages to the republic, they violate commutative justice if by a positively evil vote they are the cause on account of which damage follows.

4. If a law certainly wicked or unjust is proposed, they ought either to abstain from casting a vote or, if there is hope of fruit, to cast a vote for the contrary side. For since in modern assemblies of the kingdom deputies are held as true legislators, laws are attributed to them as to their true causes; for a law proceeds from votes as from so many particular causes.

Therefore if they make a wicked law, they not only sin by consenting to an evil matter, but where damage is inflicted upon others through the law, they are also bound to restitution, provided the vote was certainly efficacious for the effect of the law.