translated from Spanish: Complaint against Court of Appeals for “Acting Against the Law” in U.S. Judge Urrutia’s Suspension

Attorney Ignacio Buchmann filed a prevariication complaint with the North Central Prosecutor’s Office against the Court of Appeals of Santiago.
According to Radio Biobío, the legal action comes after the Court of Alzada decided to suspend the judge of the Seventh Guarantee Court of the capital Daniel Urrutia, leaving ineffective his decision to change the pre-trial detention for house arrest formalized by public and syndicated disorders as members of the “first line”. Let us remember that Urrutia released 13 of those accused in the case because it could substitute ex officio – without half intervention – the precautionary measure of pre-trial detention with a less burdensome, in this case total house arrest, to pass the penalty at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. This, because of the risk of contagion in prison.
However, the decision has already been overturned by the Court of Appeals of Santiago, which made an extraordinary plenary because they considered Urrutia to act outside the law. For this reason, in addition to revoking his order, he proceeded to suspend him, also ordering the opening of a disciplinary summary against him.
“With regard to the right, the decision in comment refers to article 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which empowers a judge to replace pre-trial detention, ex officio or at the request of a party, by some of the measures referred to in paragraph 6a of this Title. In addition, It refers to Article 150 of the same legal body which obliges the Court to adopt and provide for the necessary measures for the protection of the physical integrity of the accused”, is explained in part of the document submitted by Buchmann.
The lawyer complains that the facts may constitute the offence of prevarication by the Court of Alzada as it would have ruled against article 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers a judge to replace the precautionary measure of pre-trial detention, both ex officio or on request.
The lawyer also argues that this provision contains a power that is deprived of the guarantee judge and ignoring it is to detract from independence and rule against the law.
“In a rule of law, one of the fundamental pillars is the principle of legality, which implies that the exercise of any exercise of a public authority must be carried out in accordance with the current law and its jurisdiction and not the will of the persons. So the judiciary must fail and proceed in accordance with the law, in the absence of this fairness or resort to the general principles of law,” the document says.
“The Court of Appeals has no legal power to review of its own motion a decision that replaces a pre-trial detention, there is no criminal procedural rule that allows it.” The complaint, in accordance with Article 149 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, states, “the appeal against a decision amending a pre-trial detention is that of appeal, hence the decisions of the judge of guarantee in the field of pre-trial detention are subject to party control, through the appeal that the law crosses, which is the appeal,” he adds.

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment