The week the Supreme Court was rained

The controversy over the purchase of luxurious Lexus cars is an anecdote compared to all the events that have recently affected the country’s highest court. It has been raining on the Supreme Court for some time now and this week is no exception. As an authority on the subject told me: “And this is not going to stop because the system encourages these things to happen.” Here we review some of those events that are making the supreme authorities evaluate having a spokesperson again.
It all started in June 2023. The ruling of the Third Chamber on the Isapres led to an interview with its then spokesperson Ángela Vivanco, in which she reinterpreted said ruling. After the episode, the highest court decided not to have a spokesperson and opted for a low profile, but the leak of Luis Hermosilla’s chat arrived with alleged efforts to appoint the supreme Jean Pierre Matus and the minister of the Court of Appeals Antonio Ulloa . On that occasion they chose to speak through an official statement.

The issue repeats itself

The issue of appointments arises again this week with the chat of the questioned former minister of the Court of Appeals, Juan Antonio Poblete, in which he communicates with the ministers Mario Carroza and Lamberto Cisternas, to give them the names of the new notaries for Tierra Amarilla and Lo Barnechea. But the case that has generated the most controversy is that of the numerous conversations that Judge Poblete himself had with right-wing political authorities so that Minister María Teresa Letelier managed to reach the Supreme Court.

The minister who voted for the release of her promoter

In the case of María Teresa Letelier, the efforts for her promotion become relevant, because she participated in the Chamber that in June 2023 granted “immediate freedom” to her promoter in office, the former minister of the Court of Appeals Juan Antonio Poblete, when he was serving preventive detention for the investigation of the crimes of falsification of public instruments and interception of communications in the Surveyor case.

Letelier’s daughter obtains 9 votes to reach the court of San Miguel

This discussion led to the release this week of a record of the Supreme Court, dated May 27, in which the daughter of the same Minister Maria Teresa Letelier, Bárbara Quintana Letelier, is a member of the shortlist for the Court of Appeals of San Miguel with 9 votes in favor, while the following candidates have 4 and 2 votes. No one disputes the professional suitability or qualifications of Bárbara Quintana, but this leak clearly wants to draw attention to the appointment system in the Judiciary.

The Court Palace has been in the news for months

Another case that generated noise in the Judiciary this year was that of Judge Graciel Muñoz, daughter of the president of the Third Chamber, Sergio Muñoz, who was only reprimanded for exercising her position as judge of the 12th Guarantee Court of Santiago from Italy. .

Opacity in appointments

The discussion that generated the case of Ministers Matus and Ulloa produced, at the end of March, the statement from the Supreme Court where they recognized “some spaces of opacity” in the appointment of ministers, but which also recalled that it corresponds to the ” “The Judiciary prepares a plan, the Executive makes a proposal and the Senate ratifies it.” A wake-up call for the political class.
The lawyer and rector of the Diego Portales University, Carlos Peña, told me about these efforts to promote judges: “What is reproached in that case is not that a senator has an opinion, but rather the trafficking of it by interacting with people who move in the corridors of power.

This week ended with the Supreme Court closing ranks with its ministers questioned. Minister Letelier, on Monday in plenary, would have expressed her annoyance at the attempt to reactivate an Ethics Commission after learning of the chat with Poblete, pointing out – according to El Mercurio – to her colleagues at the Supreme Court that none of them were there “by deed and grace of the Holy Spirit. As an expert in the judicial world told me, “superheroes don’t step on each other’s capes.” The investigation into the purchase of the 22 Lexus vehicles continues without developments and, as has already been said, it is an anecdote after the last four months.