Santiago de Chile, (EFE).- The Constitutional Court (TC) of Chile declared admissible on Thursday the appeals filed by the right-wing opposition against 7 of the 13 pardons that President Gabriel Boric granted at the end of last December, the majority to young people detained in the 2019 protests.
Unanimously, the court will study the pardons granted both to six convicted of crimes committed in the social outbreak and to Jorge Mateluna, a former member of the radical armed group Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), which fought the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ( 1973-1990).
«TC declares admissible 7 unconstitutionality requests presented by a group of honorable senators and senators. Subsequently, it will be resolved on the merits by listening to arguments in a public hearing,” the institution reported on its Twitter account.
A group of parliamentarians from the conservative Chile Vamos coalition and the Democratic party appealed the pardons on January 16, arguing that they “do not respect the law or the equality of other people sentenced” for similar acts.
This is the first time in history that the court has reviewed presidential pardons.
The decision announced on December 30 generated an unparalleled political crisis, which cost the former Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Marcela Ríos, and one of Boric’s main advisers, Matías Meza-Lopehandía, their posts.
It also caused various political formations to get up from the negotiating table in Congress for a security pact, one of the main projects of the Executive.
The pardons came at a time when polls show high concern about insecurity in the country; Although the number of crimes has decreased in recent years, the degree of violence and the media coverage of robberies and robberies have increased.
The Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, pointed out minutes before the Constitutional ruling that the pardons are within the law and that the Government will defend them in court.
“We are going to defend the acts and their files in court in accordance with current rules, but also with institutional practices and previous jurisprudence that has existed on these issues,” he added.
