Reviving Chile’s Judiciary Post-Dictatorship

According to the Ratliff article on judicial reform, Chile has the most respected judicial system in Latin America, “A recent rating of judicial systems of the world that focused on efficiency and the opinions of users found the Mexican and all Latin American judicial systems except Chile’s in the bottom 20 percent globally.” Chile’s judiciary may be relatively efficient in comparison to its neighbors, but this was not always the case. Democratic consolidation from authoritarian rule has been a very gradual process, and can be seen by the way in which the Chilean courts have handled the military regime following the dictatorship. With the fall of the Pinochet, Chile fully implemented its 1980 constitution, which provided for an independent judiciary. However, the courts, still dominated by appointees of the Pinochet regime, were unwilling to prosecute for human rights violations by the military that occurred during the dictatorship. In 1990, the Chilean government set up an independent inquiry into those “disappeared” during the dictatorship, however it was not until the 1998 arrest of Pinochet in London, where it was ruled that he lacked immunity under international law, that Chileans judges grew the confidence to seek justice. It has only been in the past few years that the families of those tortured, killed, and “disappeared” during the military regime have begun to see justice. Even Pinochet, who was extradited to Spain while on a trip to London, was to be subjected to the law. Unfortunately, he died before the courts were able to hold him accountable.

The first article, “Slaking a Thirst for Justice” discuses the peace that many of these families are finding as they begin to learn what occurred to their loved ones and to seek justice. “In Chile, some 3,000 people were killed or “disappeared” at the hands of Pinochet’s regime. But the dictatorship’s amnesty for its own crimes outlived it.” As of April of last year when the article was written, 148 people had been convicted of human rights violations during the dictatorship, and over 400 more, nearly all from the armed forces, had been indicted or were under investigation. The second article, entitled “Prosecuting Pinochet in Spain” provides details on Pinoche’s extradition to Spain, the charges he faced, and the international laws that allowed Spain to intervene and for him to be charged.

Sources:
“Slaking a Thirst for Justice.” The Economist, April 12, 2007
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=548600&story_id=9017531

Wilson, Richard. “Prosecuting Pinochet in Spain” Washington College of Law http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/v6i3/pinochet.htm