2024-03-25 23:03:25
At 2:30 p.m. this Monday, the plenary session of the Supreme Court began, chaired by the president of the organization, Ricardo Blanco. And beyond the table that was set for the day, in this session the ministers agreed to address, specifically, a matter that is currently haunting the Judiciary: the alleged connection of supreme authorities with the lawyer Luis Hermosilla.
The mention of the Judiciary in the so-called audio case occurred after the formalization of the former director of the PDI, Sergio Muñoz, and while the Public Ministry is investigating the rest of the communications of the criminal lawyer, who, according to Ciper, in 2021, would have had contact with the now ministers Jean Pierre Matus, judge of the Supreme Court, and Antonio Ulloa, magistrate of the Court of Appeals of Santiago.
After knowing this background, the deputy Daniel Manouchehri (PS), president of the investigative commission in charge of reviewing possible irregularities in the Internal Revenue Service and in the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF) that is now also investigating this case, maintained that in addition of the former Ministers of the Interior Rodrigo Delgado and Andrés Chadwick, all the ministers of the Supreme Court and the presidents of the Courts of Appeals would also be invited to explain Hermosilla’s alleged link with the magistrates and its possible impact on their appointments.
Manouchehri assured on Sunday that it is clear that “we face powerful and secret networks, but people expect us to do the right thing. It is necessary to investigate whether there are legal cases represented by Hermosilla and ruled by the aforementioned judges. “We already know that there was influence on the appointments, we still do not know if there was influence or information leaked on the rulings.”
But, the full court of the highest court had something to decide. Meeting on Monday afternoon, the ministers made the decision not to attend the commission and reject the invitation of the deputies. “This is called separation of the powers of the State,” said one of the magistrates.
Jean Pierre Matus and Antonio Ulloa.
The Hermosilla issue was the first point on the plenary session. In the instance, according to sources familiar with the decision, the supreme leaders agreed not to attend the congressional investigative commission, based on the legal argument that the House investigative commission lacks the power to summon them to present in an instance of this type.
Article 52 of the Constitution, cited by different supreme authorities consulted, maintains that the power of the Chamber to summon this type of commission is to supervise the acts of the government or officials of the State administration, which does not contemplate – be a different power – to the members of the Judiciary.
Something that is different, for example, in the face of a constitutional accusation, in which they would be obliged to appear, but for which the agreement of the courtroom and clearly different conditions are required.
The aforementioned constitutional norm states that the Chamber “can only create Commissions to investigate acts of the government, not those of Congress or the Judiciary.” In its same articles it is stated that the creation of this type of commission is for the purpose of “gathering information related to certain acts of the government” and not of another branch of the State.
For the same reason, those who are obliged to attend the investigative commission are the ministers of the Executive, “the other officials of the administration and the personnel of the State companies or those in which it has a majority participation”, who, if summoned, must mandatory attendance.
During the discussion of this plenary session, Minister Matus was not present, since the entity confirmed that he has been on administrative leave, long before the publication of Ciper.
DECEMBER 10, 2019 LAWYER LUIS HERMOSILLA, DURING THE CONSTITUTIONAL ACCUSATION AGAINST ANDRES CHADWICK IN THE SENATE. PHOTO: DEDVI MISSENE
All the information that has emerged in the last few hours, and which shows a possible connection of magistrates with the case being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office, led the ministers to request a series of measures to address the situation.
The final position of the highest court will be communicated during the day this Tuesday, at noon, and there will be a spokesperson for the Supreme Court regarding the issue. And along with announcing that the magistrates will not participate in the investigative commission, the Supreme Court’s communication would also address the discussion and implications of the eventual link between the judges and the aforementioned criminal expert.
Along these lines, it would be clarified that in no case should corporate defenses be made of the appointments currently questioned, nor should prior positions be assumed, since the content of the conversations is not yet known.
Finally, and considering the position that the Judiciary has had, the ministers also maintained – prior to the plenary session – that the organization’s interest in making changes to the system of appointments of magistrates must also be expressed, as they proposed. during the constitutional process of 2022 and 2023.
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