The politics of judicial review in Chile in the era of democratic transition, 1990-2002

Democratization and the Judiciary: The Accountability Function of Courts in New Democracies

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 50-65

  Couso, Javier A ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD DIEGO PORTALES   (Chile)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77950156078     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203485408     Document Type: Chapter

References (36)

1. See Robin Hodess (ed.), The Global Corruption Report (Berlin: Transparency International, 2003);
2. and Freedom House Report: Freedom in the World 2000-2002 (New York: Transaction Publishers, 2002).
3. For an account of this phenomena, see Charles Epp, The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), \
4. and Neil Tate and Torbjorn Vallinder (eds), The Global Expansion of Judicial Power (New York: New York University Press, 1995).
5. Cass Sunstein, 'On Property and Constitutionalism', in Michael Rosenfeld (ed.), Constitutionalism, Identity, Difference, and Legitimacy. Theoretical Perspectives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), p.384.
6. See also Stephen Macedo, 'Liberal Virtues, Constitutional Community', The Review of Politics, Vol.50, No.2 (1988), pp.215-40, who says at p.225, 'If constitutionalism and the rule of law stand for anything, they stand for the idea that one system of law applies to government officials and citizens alike, and that citizens have a right to challenge governmental acts in independent courts of law.'
7. William C.Prillaman, The Judiciary and Democratic Decay in Latin America. Declining Confidence in the Rule of Law (Westport, CT, & London: Praeger, 2000), p.1.
8. Robert Barro, 'Democracy and the Rule of Law', in Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Hilton Root (eds), Governing for Prosperity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), pp.209-31.
9. Pablo Spiller and Brian Levy, Regulations, Institutions, and Commitment: Comparative Studies of Telecommunications (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
10. Maria Dakolias, 'A Strategy for Judicial Reform: The Experience in Latin America', Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol.36 (1995), pp.167-8.
11. Margaret Keck and Katherine Sikkink, Activist Beyond Borders (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
12. Manuel Antonio Garretón, Hacia una Nueva Era Politica: Estudios Sobre las Democratizaciones (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995).
13. Gastón Gómez, 'Algunas Ideas Críticas Sobre la Jurisdicción Constitucional en Chile', in Gastón Gómez (ed.), La Jurisdicción Constitucional Chilena Ante la Reforma (Santiago, Chile: Universidad Diego Portales, 1999), Vol.41, p.93.
14. See the 'Organic Law of the Tribunal Constitucional', Law No.17.997 of 19 May 1981.
15. Patricio Zapata, La Jurisprudencia del Tribunal Constitutional (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Corporación Tiempo 2000, 1994), p.250.
16. For an account of the origins and evolution of this agency see Enrique Silva, La Contraloria General de la República (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Juridica de Chile, 1945).
17. Such was the conclusion of the so-called 'Truth and Reconciliation Report', which in one of its passages reads: 'The Judicial branch did not react with sufficient energy to the widespread human rights violations of the time (although) political conditions would have allowed the courts to take a more assertive behaviour in defending human rights...Indeed, the attitude adopted by the judicial branch during the military regime resulted in a deepening of the process of systematic human rights violations both in the short term, because the courts did not protection to individuals detained, as well as in the long term, because gave repressive agents a growing sense of impunity for their criminal actions.'. Quoted in Jorge Correa, 'La Cenicienta se Queda en la Fiesta. El Poder Judicial Chileno en la Década de los 90', in Paul Drake and Iván Jaksic (eds), El Modelo Chileno. Democracia y Desarrollo en los Noventa (Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones, 1999), p.302.
18. Within the opposition, the most vocal critic of the judiciary's performance and outdated practices was the 'Centro de Estudios Públicos', a moderate right-wing think tank which, in 1991, published a book calling for the modernization of the Chilean judiciary. See Eugenio Valenzuela's Proposiciones para la Reforma Judicial (Santiago, Chile: Centro de Estudios Públicos, 1991).
19. Passage quoted from the text of the Supreme Court's response to the 'Rettig Commission Report,' issued on 17 May 1991, quoted in Alejandra Matus's El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Planeta, 1999), p.59.
20. See the document 'Respuesta de la Corte Suprema al Informe de la Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación', in Estudios Públicos No.42 (1991), p.249.
21. Indeed, while in March of 1990 (when the new democratic government took office), 12 out of 17 justices of the Supreme Court had been nominated to it by General Pinochet, by 1998 the number of justices nominated during the military regime was only four. By then the number of justices of the Supreme Court had been increased to 21, so the proportion of justices coming from the military era was clearly significantly less towards the end of the 1990s. See Matus (note 18) p.183; and Correa (note 16) p.281.
22. This assessment is general among most Chilean constitutional scholars. Among others, see Raul Bertelsen, interview with the author, 9 July 1999 and Zapata (note 13).
23. Interview by the author of former president of the Republic of Chile (1990-1994), Patricio Aylwin, 10 August 1999.
24. Interview by the author of former president of the Republic of Chile (1994-2000), Eduardo Frei, 21 August 2000.
25. Eduardo Frei, Doctrina Constitutional del Presidente Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (Santiago, Chile: División Jurídico-Legislativa, Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia, 2000).
26. Indeed, the record-keeping practices of Chile's judiciary are so poor that not even the Supreme Court has an exhaustive compilation of all of its decisions. Professor Gastón Gómez, of the Universidad Diego Portales, explaining the difficulty in getting access to Chilean judicial decisions says: 'In Chile there are no rigorous registrar of judicial decisions issued at any of the levels of the court system... And due to the fact that the formal records are filed manually, it is impossible to actually get access to them, because they do not have uniform codes for identifying them, or they are disposed after some time, or the books where they are registered are lost etc. The hindrance that such poor record-keeping practices have to research is huge. And without precise information about how things actually work it is hard to elaborate feasible judicial policies.' Gastón Gómez, unpublished manuscript on file with the author (2001), p.6.
27. Lisa Hilbink, Legalism Against Democracy: The Political Role of the Judiciary in Chile: 1964-1994, unpublished dissertation, University of California at San Diego, 1999, p.442.
28. Gastón Gómez, unpublished manuscript on file with author (2001), p.9.
29. Hugo Fruhling, Law in Society: Social Transformation and the Crisis of Law in Chile, 1830-1970, PhD dissertation, Harvard University School of Law, 1984.
30. José Luis Cea, Tratado de la Constitución de 1980: Caracteristicas Generales, Garantías Constitucionales (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1988), p.56.
31. Hilbink (note 29), p.466.
32. Carlos Peňa, Práctica Constitucional y Derechos Fundamentales (Santiago, Chile: Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación, 1996), p.147.
33. See Matus (note 18), pp.198-9.
34. Gonzalo Vial, Historia de Chile, 1891-1973. Arturo Alessandri y los Golpes Militares (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Fundación, 1993), Vol.3.
35. Profesor Alejandro Silva Bascuňán, a noted constitutional scholar, now 93 years old, remembers the impact that Ibáňez's brutal intervention in Chile's Supreme Court had. He says: 'I was a young law student working part time in the Lawyers Guild ("Colegio de Abogados") when this incident happened. We were all shocked and concerned for our judicial system. I never forgot the incident'. Interview with the author, 18 August 1999.
36. See Alec Stone, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).