A group of lawyers linked to the former Concertación published an insert in the newspaper La Tercera to criticize the work of the Constitutional Convention, especially for the approval of standards lacking in quality and “technical and legal rigor” which, according to them, introduce a series of uncertainties about the future functioning of the institutions and threaten to further divide Chilean society.
The group, called “Lawyers and Lawyers for Chile”, thus expressed its deep concern about the advances of the Convention in judicial matters, but also regarding the plurinationality and autonomy that it plans to grant to indigenous peoples, in addition to “a setback of norms of guarantees before the expropriation of goods, legal certainty about property, freedom of entrepreneurship, copyright, lack of a systemic design of autonomous bodies, regions, autonomies, progress in unfunded social rights”.
“We express our concern about initiatives that permanently seek to undermine the independence of the Judiciary, create parallel ‘justice systems’, increase the bureaucratization, control and size of the State, divide the country into nations and autonomies, without considering the rich multicultural diversity of the Nation, with a clear identity bias”, they added in the insert.
Likewise, the jurists warned about the “regression of guarantee norms in the face of the expropriation of assets, legal certainty about property, freedom of entrepreneurship, copyright, lack of a systemic design of autonomous bodies, regions, autonomies, progress in rights unfunded social services”, while expressing their disagreement with the “harsh tone and far from self-criticism”.
“A deficient Constitution, with gaps or hermeneutic problems, can lead to several serious conflicts and, unfortunately, our political history has shown it in the past. These crises have led to disagreements between Chileans, political conflicts and even deep divisions in the country that are difficult to overcome,” added the signing lawyers, who declared themselves in agreement with a Constitution “for governments of different signs”, and that “Address diversity in the minimum unity that a country requires and that protects our public freedoms and rights.”
The group appears headed by the former Minister of the Interior and Defense, Jorge Burgos; the former Minister of Agriculture and Justice, Jaime Campos Quiroga; the former Undersecretary of the Interior, Jorge Correa Sutil, the former Ministers of the Interior Carlos Figueroa Serrano and Enrique Krauss Rusque; former Undersecretary of Labor Zarko Luksic Sandoval; the former Minister of Housing, of National Assets and former Minister of Defense, Jaime Ravinet; Senator DC Ximena Rincón; the former Undersecretary of Mining and Justice Isidro Solís; and the brothers Ignacio Walker Prieto (former Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Matías Walker Prieto, current senator.
