Regarding the death of María Luisa Toledo, I remembered Tolkien’s description of the passage of time: “It devours all things.” It seems to me that this description is sadly accurate in the field of human rights: time devours justice.
The State of Chile, through various international treaties, including the American Declaration of Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the four Geneva Conventions, has inexcusably committed itself to adopting all measures and always maintaining a political will conducive to bringing to justice the perpetrators of human rights violations effectively. , fast and effective.
Unfortunately, in 30 years of transitional justice, it is possible to see State policies and decisions that turn a blind eye to these obligations, especially the systematic application of the amnesty law and the application of the statute of limitations to those responsible for human rights crimes, situations that forced human rights defenders to seek formulas in order to combat impunity.
The most recent example is that a few weeks ago the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) decided to recommend to the State of Chile that the Supreme Court annul 14 sentences in which it applied the half-statute of limitations to 50 convicted of human rights violations. This is not a milestone of which we should be proud, on the contrary, this recommendation to Chile comes after thirteen years of review by the Commission, a period to which we must add all the years in which these cases were investigated by the Chilean justice system.
As Tolkien says, time devours everything, the guilty die, the witnesses, the relatives who seek truth and justice. Time protects impunity and devours the longed-for claims to justice, especially when there is no one to prosecute or family member to notify.
The challenge facing the constituents is precisely that the new Constitution enaths the necessary mechanisms for the State of Chile to comply with its human rights obligations, mechanisms that prevent time from being able to devour everything, relegating the passage of time to the only function it should have in a legal system. : determine time limits and conditions.
The content of this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
