The president of the Constitutional Court (TC), Nancy Yáñez, expressed the need to advance as soon as possible in reforms aimed at modifying two key shortcomings in the organic functioning of the entity, an action that would contribute to giving it legitimacy in the eyes of citizens: control preventive law and the appointment system of its members.
“There are two issues that seem to be the most problematic: the preventive control of the law and the integration of ministers and ministers,” said the lawyer. “It is about guaranteeing that the judges decide in law and avoiding that an eventual politicization of integration could condition the fact that a jurisdictional instance of these characteristics can assume third-chamber roles. What you have to prevent is that the courts or tribunals are not a third chamber. That is why it is necessary to review the integration and some attributions that allow one to influence areas that belong to other powers of the State, such as Congress, ”she added to The Mercury.
Yáñez argued that both elements have been essential to disfigure or nullify the effects of specific legal initiatives long desired by citizens. “That has happened in the history of the Constitutional Court with some bills, and it seems to me that there are paradigmatic cases in this regard, such as the one that ruled on the powers of the Sernac or the abortion law in three grounds,” he said.
“The integration of the constitutional courts, without a doubt, responds to the different sensitivities. But, by the way, there are different forms of appointment,” said Yáñez, although this did not mean that other powers of the State should be marginalized from the appointment process. “It would not be a point of discussion that the different powers of the state participate in the nomination of constitutional judges,” he added.
The president of the TC called to undertake these transformations, since there is awareness of the discredit that weighs on the body. “It is super important to bring constitutional justice closer to the citizenry (…) It is to think that the institutional design could effectively help strengthen constitutional justice, and the perspective is that,” she indicated.
On another level, Nancy Yáñez ruled out disqualifying herself when matters related to the indigenous world are addressed, a matter in which she is an expert and in which she has expressed her criticism of the relationship that the State has established with indigenous peoples. “When I have to pronounce on issues that involve indigenous rights, human rights, environmental issues and local communities, of course they are issues in which I can contribute much more. When you speak from the field of your specialty, you feel much more comfortable to deliberate, ”she pointed out.
