The head of the Public Criminal Defender’s Office (DPP), Carlos Mora Jano —appointed by former President Sebastián Piñera in 2021 after the respective Senior Public Management contest—, issued a statement pointing to the so-called “Valencia criterion”, an office that seeks preventive detention for foreigners detained without documents. A measure supported by regional prosecutors, but whose criteria is not shared by the entire justice system.
Yesterday, the spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, Ángela Vivanco, explained the guidelines of the criteria issued by the Public Ministry and led by the National Prosecutor Ángel Valencia, pointing out that it is an internal criterion and that for the moment it is not legal. In addition, she explained that each case will be resolved individually, so there may be differences in the decision to apply it. “In some cases, that approach may work and in others it may not,” she said.
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Today, Mora Jano questioned the initiative that a group of UDI deputies now seek to convert into the “Valencia Law”. “It is not the way to take charge of the immigration problem,” said the head of the public service endowed with legal personality and its own assets, but subject to the supervision of the President of the Republic through the Ministry of Justice.
“The criminal prosecution policies established by the Public Ministry are not binding on the court decisions and less in relation to personal precautionary measures such as preventive detention, which is extremely exceptional in accordance with the law and international standards. of human rights”, said the head of the DPP, explaining that for it to be applied it must comply with material assumptions such as the existence of the crime and presumption of participation, in addition to the need for caution under the principles of rationality and proportionality.
“Pretrial detention is not the way to take charge of the country’s immigration problem. Criminal law does not solve conflicts and it is counterproductive for our criminal prosecution system to create expectations in this regard,” warned the national defender.
UDI deputies announce project of “Valencia Law”
The parliamentarians of the trade union bench, Henry Leal, Juan Manuel Fuenzalida, Renzo Trisotti and Marlene Pérez announced that they will present in the next few days a project called the “Valencia Law”, in reference to the national prosecutor, Ángel Valencia, and whose objective is to establish the obligation of the guarantee courts to order preventive detention for all foreigners who have committed a crime and who are undocumented in the country.
The UDI deputies explained that the legal initiative aims to “establish that when a foreigner is being charged with a crime, it will be presumed that his eventual release could imply a flight risk and, consequently, would end up seriously affecting the investigation of the Public Ministry and a possible sentence”. Therefore, they maintain, to avoid that, “the law will provide that the judge in charge will be obliged to decree a precautionary measure of preventive detention, at least until the competent authorities can find the real identity of the foreigner.”
“We have decided as a bench to present a bill that gives legal support to the proposal of the national prosecutor, so that all undocumented foreigners who commit a crime remain in preventive detention for as long as necessary until they know their true identity. uncontrolled irregular migration that we live in our country has caused an undetermined number of foreigners to enter with the sole purpose of committing crimes, who also repeatedly change their names to avoid the system”, declared the congressmen, who for the same reason added that “it is It is essential that, as long as the authorities do not find their true identity, they remain in preventive detention and are not released, because eventually we could run the risk of releasing a true criminal without knowing it”.
Leal, Fuenzalida, Trisotti and Pérez pointed out that the project is based on the discretion that judges have today to accept or not the request of the Public Ministry, so they assured that “with this initiative, if approved, no magistrate will be able to again to ignore the request of the Prosecutor’s Office and will have the obligation to order pretrial detention.”
“What the national prosecutor has raised is completely logical, because foreigners who have entered illegally to commit crimes change their identity every week, thus preventing them from appearing with a criminal record. And since we have already seen that in some cases the judges have not accepted the request of the Public Ministry, we believe that the best alternative is to regulate it through a bill and thus establish said obligation”, reiterated the trade unionists.
