Comparing him to a “modern prince”, former President Ricardo Lagos referred to the pardons granted by the current president, Gabriel Boric, to 12 people arrested and convicted of violent acts during the demonstrations of the social outbreak of October 2019, plus the former member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), Jorge Mateluna. The benefit was granted at the end of December last year and the controversy has continued to this day.
The issue was reopened after it was revealed that there is a new request to access the benefit and after a Gendarmerie report was issued that recommended not granting the measure to six of the 13 pardoned. The Government, between dimes and diretes, is waiting for the decision that the Constitutional Court (TC) will take regarding the requirement of unconstitutionality presented by opposition senators.
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The first thing that the former President clarified was the situation of the former frontist. In conversation with La Segunda, Lagos recalled that he himself pardoned Mateluna and established “certain requirements” to prevent it from happening again.
He explained: “I allowed myself to modify, I don’t know if it was the regulation or a law, on the basis that the person who was pardoned could not be pardoned a second time. This is a rule from 2004 or 2005,” Lagos said, along with stating : “I don’t understand how, consequently, this Mr. Mateluna was pardoned again”.
“The rule was that someone who was already pardoned once cannot be pardoned again. He is the man who came to the fore with this situation, they asked me, I found out, I have a very complete file,” he added.
In this sense, Ricardo Lagos stressed that “what the President is exercising is a power that comes from the Middle Ages.”
“In those times where the Prince, whoever he was, or the King, had not only the ability to pardon but also the ability to cut off the head, because the Judiciary did not exist. And the great conquest is when it is decided to take away the King or Prince the ability to cut off the head, life or death of the subject. The idea is generated that there should be a Judiciary independent of the King, and that was a very important advance. The right to pardon is part of that himself,” he said.
The former Head of State also recalled that what he proposed at the time was that the power of pardon be more linked to the Judiciary, which is the one who has the records of the people, “and not to the one who acts as a modern Prince, who called President of the Republic or Prime Minister”.
“I believe that social peace does not depend on a pardon, frankly,” Lagos declared. Social peace, he said, “depends on other things, and if we are going to do something fundamental, the bottom line is that this country is enraged, with each other, as I have never known it in my life.”
Consequently, the former president concluded, “what we have is a coexistence problem, which is different.” In his opinion, what happened on 18-O “speaks of an angry country, and that country is angry because we have had social issues that have been postponed for a long time.”
“Why did what happened in Chile happen?” The former president finally questioned. “Because we were putting things off, now we are here and again we are in a tax reform,” he closed.
UDI deputies for statements by Ricardo Lagos: “They are a tombstone for the Government”
The UDI deputies, Juan Antonio Coloma and Cristhian Moreira, described the statements of former President Ricardo Lagos as a “tombstone” for the current government.
The union parliamentarians assured that the ex-President’s statements “are the reality check that this government needed”, adding that regardless of the Constitutional Court ruling regarding the legality of the pardons -which will be known tomorrow-, “the transversal conviction that we are facing the worst mistake that this administration could have made and that, in short, puts the tombstone when he still has three years of management remaining.
“The entire opposition, in addition to a series of parliamentarians from the ruling party itself and now, even, former President Lagos, have questioned and expressed their disbelief in the pardons granted by President Boric. And we all know that the ex-President’s statements are not limited exclusively to the case of ex-frontist Jorge Mateluna, but rather reflect the opinion that all Chileans have in relation to these benefits, especially when he decides to release six criminals who, according to the Gendarmerie, maintain a high risk of recidivism”, pointed out the UDIs.
Coloma and Moreira added that “it is evident that the government, politically, lost its bottom from this disastrous decision”, so they assured that “the best thing that could happen is that the Constitutional Court corrects the aberration they made and backs down on the pardons signed by President Boric”, insisting that “there is no reasonable argument to justify this measure, and today former President Lagos has taken it upon himself to transmit it to them.”
“Because of their exclusive responsibility, the Government has been unable to consider this situation as overcome, because they have installed a cloak of doubts, they have not made all the information transparent and now, even, Undersecretary Monsalve has contradicted Minister Vallejo and himself Boric President. Unfortunately, everything related to pardons will haunt this administration until the last day of its mandate, because for no one it is conceivable that twelve criminals and a terrorist have been released in the midst of the worst security crisis that we are experiencing in our country.” , criticized the parliamentarians of the UDI bench.
Government avoids debate and leaves everything in the hands of the TC
It is worth mentioning that the head of the General Secretariat of Government (Segegob), the spokes minister Camila Vallejo, asserted that it is not for her to enter into a legal debate with former President Lagos, even though her opinion is “politically legitimate and credible”. especially hours before the Constitutional Court (TC) votes on the requirement of unconstitutionality presented by opposition senators.
“Entering a discussion at the communication level regarding this, when it is based in the TC, does not correspond, beyond the fact that it is a valid and legitimate opinion of the former President, but the resolution, definitely, on whether this proceeded or not, if it conforms to the Constitution and the laws, it belongs to the Constitutional Court and, depending on the result, the Minister of Justice Luis Cordero will refer,” the spokeswoman for La Moneda announced.
