The deputy of the Republican Party Gloria Naveillán and the president of Mujeres por la Araucanía, the ex-conventional member of that same party, Ruth Hurtado, called on the new head of the Constitutional Court, Nancy Yáñez, to disqualify herself from the vote – to be carried out this Wednesday July 20- to resolve the admissibility of a request that seeks to declare unconstitutional four groups involved in acts of violence in the so-called “southern macrozone.”
The request is justified by the series of statements allegedly made by the lawyer in favor of the resistance actions carried out in the area, as well as by her position traditionally favorable to the restitution of lands and the constitutional recognition of the Mapuche nation, to which adds its support to community members in preventive detention or sentenced for committing violent acts in a political context “in which the rights of the Mapuche people have been systematically violated”, as declared in 2020 on the website of the radio University of Chile, for what that the judiciary in charge of these processes should consider “this circumstance in its desire for real justice; Otherwise, they are complicit in the criminalization and extermination of the Mapuche people.”
“A person who has a formed opinion and, in addition, has made it public, and who presides over a court like this, for transparency must be disqualified from a determination regarding whether the requirement corresponds or not,” deputy Naveillán told El Mercurio, This opinion coincides with that of the former conventionalist Hurtado, who spoke in favor of the president of the TC “taking a step aside and that other people, who do not have an opinion already conceived, be the ones who speak out.”
“His presence in the vote would not be impartial,” added Ruth Hurtado, while the deputy of the National Renewal Miguel Mellado stressed that Yáñez’s vote is “only one of the five votes in the room and I trust his legal criteria and that by that is in the TC, regardless of his previous sayings. I hope that she acts in a legal manner and not as a political commentator, ”said the parliamentarian.
The unconstitutionality requirement -invoked based on the provisions contained in article 19, number 15 and paragraph 6- is directed against the Arauco Malleco Coordinator (CAM) and the groups Weichan Auca Mapu (WAM), Resistencia Mapuche Malleco (RMM) and Mapuche Lavkenche Resistance (MML).
