translated from Spanish: President of the Supreme Court defended the judges who granted the freedom of Hugo Bustamante

The President of the Supreme Court, Guillermo Silva, on Sunday defended the country’s judges following criticism of the case of Hugo Bustamante, the double murderer who was on probation and who is the ultimate suspect for the death of the teenage Amber Cornejo.” We judges are independent to resolve the judicial matters before our knowledge and to resolve them we have to stick to two things: the merit of the process and the law, nothing more. Judges have to dispense with any outside influence that does not say anything related to it,” Silva told the newspaper La Tercera.” I think it’s okay for people to show discrepancies, but there are shapes and shapes, and boundaries. Violence is not the right way to attack a court decision, except a judge,” said the Leader of the Supreme Court, who also said that judges “are not going to get carried away by intimidation, because that would seriously jeopardize the rule of law.” On Judge Silvana Donoso, who decreed Bustamante’s parole, she said that “she chaired a commission and the probation provides for a number of requirements to grant them. The judges had to abide by the law and that’s why in 2015 and 2016 there were many.” In addition, she stated that “the decision was not hers alone, the commission is also made up of criminal judges.” We were able to fail, but also the one who established the benefit of probation in that way could fail, and that is not the judiciary. This case, like the whole country, has shocked me a lot, but we as judges are in an ongoing conflict in the face of benefits,” the authority said.

Original source in Spanish