After listening to the presentation of each one of the applicants, who presented their views on the judicial system and advanced part of their proposals to lead the Public Ministry, the Supreme Court defined the five persecutors who could succeed the retired Jorge Abbott in the head of the National Prosecutor’s Office.
Of the 17 professionals who attended the Supreme Court today, the five were finally made up of the regional prosecutor of Magallanes, José Morales; the criminal lawyer Ángel Valencia; the lawyer and director of the Specialized Anticorruption and Legal Unit of the Public Ministry, Marta Herrera; the regional prosecutor of Aysén Carlos Palma, and the former deputy prosecutor of the Central North Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Rodrigo Ríos.
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The applicants had to expose for 10 minutes before the highest court. They addressed the fight against delinquency, organized crime, violent crimes and those committed by public officials, the conflict in the south, the gender perspective, and the need to regain the trust of citizens. All with proposals to improve the task performed by Abbott.
Morales got 17 votes, as did Valencia. They were followed by Herrera with 9 votes, Palma with 7 votes and Ríos with 3 votes. Now, everything is in the hands of President Gabriel Boric, who must propose his chosen one among those five names to Congress.
For La Moneda’s option to be ratified, it must have the support of 2/3 of the senators in office, which corresponds to 33 of the 50 members of the Upper House. If President Boric’s proposal is rejected, the Supreme Court must propose a new five to the Executive.
It is worth mentioning that, currently, the Public Ministry is being led by the deputy national prosecutor Juan Agustín Meléndez, who worked as regional prosecutor for Los Ríos. This, since last September 30, after Jorge Abbott turned 75 the next day and reached the age limit to lead the organization, having to leave office after seven years at the head of the persecuting entity.
The regional prosecutor of Los Ríos, Juan Agustín Meléndez, who has served as a substitute national prosecutor after Abbott’s retirement, was left on the road; his regional peers from O’Higgins, Emiliano Arias, from Ñuble, Nayalet Mansilla, and from Magallanes, Eugenio Campos; and the Ombudsman for Children, Patricia Muñoz.
Candidates for National Prosecutor
- Jose Morales Opazo: A lawyer from the Central University of Chile, he has a diploma in Criminal Law from said house of studies. He began his career in the Public Ministry in 2000, serving as Chief Prosecutor in Los Vilos. During that time, he obtained the first conviction of the Criminal Procedure Reform, specifically in the crime of money laundering in the Ovalle Court and in the case of an international vehicle theft network that was carried out between Chile and Bolivia. In the same way, he acted as a persecutor in cases such as the Monjitas case in 2002 in La Serana and the robbery carried out on trucks transporting valuables during 2006 and 2007. In 2005, Morales took over as Chief Prosecutor of Colina, arriving to the Central North Prosecutor’s Office as Chief Prosecutor of one of the territorial prosecutor’s offices a year later, later to lead the High Complexity Prosecutor’s Office, in which he directed an investigation against the former executives of La Polar. He has starred in a media case, where he acted as a persecutor in the fraud case of commercial engineer Rafael Garay.
- Angel Valencia Vasquez criminal lawyer from the University of Chile. He holds a Master’s in Oral Litigation from California Western School of Law. During the years 2000-2002, he worked in the Coordinating Unit for Criminal Procedure Reform in the Ministry of Justice as sub-coordinator, after which he came to the Public Ministry as an advisory attorney in the Aysén Regional Prosecutor’s Office and later as deputy prosecutor in Valparaíso and Santiago. He has been part of the defense of cases such as that of Rafel Garay and the former general director (r) of Carabineros Bruno Villalobos, who was accused of embezzlement within the institution. Today he works as a trial lawyer at Amenábar & Valencia Abogados. In addition, he is a professor at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences of the Universidad San Sebastián.
- Marta Herrera-Seguel: Lawyer from the University of Chile and director of the Specialized Anticorruption and Legal Unit of the Public Ministry, Marta Seguel. She has a diploma in New Criminal Procedure System and a Diploma in Sexual Assaults in the same house of studies. She also holds a Master of Laws from California Western School of Law. She was an attorney for the State Defense Council of the Santiago Attorney General’s Office, during the years 2000-2001. Then, she worked as an advisory attorney for the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Public Ministry until 2003, being appointed in 2007 in the position that she holds today.
- Carlos Palma Guerra: Lawyer from the University of Talca and Regional Prosecutor of Aysén since 2017. He has a Master’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the Central University. He has been a teacher in charge of the diploma courses on Criminal Law and Litigation Skills and Sexual Abuse Expertise at the University of Concepción, and is also affiliated with the San Sebastián University, where he teaches Criminal Litigation Skills and Procedural Law. He was Chief Prosecutor of the Coronel Prosecutor’s Office, in addition to Deputy Prosecutor of Concepción and Talca, he acted as subrogation of the Bio Bio Regional Prosecutor’s Office, from 2011 to 2017. And he has experience as a prosecutor specializing in the investigation of sexual crimes, money laundering and organized crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking and public corruption crimes. Currently, he is in charge of the investigation for the alleged implantation of evidence in the framework of the so-called “Hurricane Case”.
- Rodrigo Rios Alvarez: Lawyer from the University of Chile. He has a diploma in Criminal Procedure Law and is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Law at the University of Buenos Aires. He served as deputy director in the International Cooperation and Extraditions Unit of the National Prosecutor’s Office between 2014 and 2016. He served as Deputy Prosecutor of the North Central Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office and has worked in the Judiciary as secretary and judge(s) of the First Court of the Crimen de Santiago and as a private individual in the Public Criminal Defense Office, carrying out external auditor tasks. From 2018 to the present, he officiates as a member of the Innocent Project Committee, and is also a professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the Finis Terrae and Católica del Maule universities.
Check the record of the Supreme Court.
