The Chile Vamos opposition coalition filed an appeal on Monday with the Constitutional Court to revoke the pardons granted in late December by the country’s president, Gabriel Boric, to more than a dozen protesters arrested during social protests in late 2019.
As detailed by Francisco Chahúan, president of Renovación Nacional – a formation that is part of Chile Vamos – the main objective of the appeal is to review «from the legal point of view» the pardon granted to seven of those benefited by Boric’s measure of grace.
«Some decrees are not adequately founded: there are formal errors in terms of the reference to the articles that could allow these people to be pardoned. There are not only factual errors, there are formal errors in the decrees», he asserted.
In this sense, Chahuán has recognized that they expect from President Boric «a signal» and has asked him to «leave without effect» some pardons that since the day of their announcement have generated controversy in Chile and have even provoked the departure of Marcela Ríos as head of the Ministry of Justice.
For his part, the president of the Independent Democratic Union, Javier Macaya, has assured that on other occasions pardons have been respected when they have been motivated by humanitarian or health reasons.
«But when a pardon is granted for political considerations, it obviously enters into a contradiction that for us is fundamentally political and we hope to resolve it,» said Macaya, according to Chilean television channel T13.
President Boric granted at the end of 2022 a series of pardons that from the first moment generated controversy and criticism from the opposition, which intensified after verifying that in the pardon process one of the main premises had not been fulfilled: that the beneficiary had no previous record.
Thus, the Government granted the pardon to more than a dozen demonstrators, including Luis Castillo, who had previously been convicted of five common crimes between 2005 and 2017, according to the Chilean press.
The Chilean government then acknowledged a series of «sloppiness» that resulted in the aforementioned departure of Ríos and that of Matías Meza-Lopehandía as Chief of Cabinet. Boric himself then came out to recognize that when this type of situation occurs, «responsibilities must be assumed».
According to a survey carried out by Cadem, 72 percent of the Chilean population is against these pardons, while 37 percent consider that all of them should be revoked, regardless of whether there is a record or not.
Beyond the demonstrators, the Government also granted pardon to the former guerrilla of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) Jorge Mateluna, whose pardon received even less support. Eighty-one percent of those polled are against his pardon.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
