Based on a request submitted by the Jesuit Service for Migrants (SJM) and the Legal Clinics for Migrants and Refugees of the Universities Diego Portales and Alberto Hurtado, the Court of Appeals of Iquique officiated to the National Headquarters of the Investigation Police (PDI) to give an account of how it is complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling that orders the right to legal advice to be guaranteed to any person detained in its barracks nationwide.
In its ruling of May 13 of this year, the highest court ordered that “the permanent legal advice — without any distinction — be ensured for persons who are deprived or restricted in their liberty within their premises.”
The request, filed last Wednesday, questioned whether the PDI has so far complied with the court’s order, since it appears to have failed to instruct its officials to ensure that lawyers can enter its offices throughout the country to offer legal advice on a permanent basis to foreign persons who are in them, a procedure necessary for its fulfillment.
This is because last Wednesday, June 23, during a new operation to expel migrants from the national territory carried out by the PDI, lawyer Constanza Salgado Boza, of the Jesuit Migrant Service, and lawyer Marjorie Dinamarca Jofré, of the Legal Clinic of the Diego Portales University, requested to enter the police station located at 253 San Francisco Street in Santiago to meet with the detainees, but the request was denied by the officials on duty of the PDI.
Thus, through a letter, the Court of Appeals of Iquique requested the National Headquarters of the PDI to exhibit written evidence stating the direct instructions given to all units in the country, in compliance with the order of the Supreme Court in its ruling 32840-2021.
From the SJM, its national director, Waleska Ureta, explains that “now the PDI must answer to the court, explaining whether or not it has complied with instructing its officials so that lawyers can access their barracks to deliver the defense required by migrants facing administrative expulsion. It is essential that the PDI understands that it is a constitutional right that they are violating.”
“The instruction given by the Court shows that in the actions of the PDI there is a violation of the most basic and elementary rights that exist in the judicial field for any person, such as being able to meet with a lawyer for his/her defense, even more so when there are only a few hours prior to the expulsion. Denying entry to police headquarters to lawyers has no justification whatsoever, it is an illegal practice and we hope that the head of the PDI will instruct in this regard, considering also that the new Migration Law will impose additional and specific requirements on the conditions in which migrants must remain in these places and how access to a lawyer should be guaranteed, “said macarena Rodríguez, lawyer of the Legal Clinic for The Care of Migrants of the Alberto Hurtado University.
In the eyes of Francisca Vargas, director of the Legal Clinic for Migrants and Refugees at the Diego Portales University, “the right to legal assistance is a fundamental part of the right to a defense and due process. What happened to the lawyers of our institutions on 23 June is inexplicable, since depriving people of access to talk to a lawyer leaves them in a situation of vulnerability and serious helplessness, contrary to international human rights standards and our own Political Constitution of the Republic. We hope that the PDI will be able to give an account of the actions it is taking to comply with the mandate of the Court of Appeals and also with the legal norms that govern all of us, and that it will carry them out effectively.”
