The Government looks with caution at what happens from this Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies, where the possibility of a fourth withdrawal of pension funds will be voted. And not precisely because of this project, of which they have expressed their continuous rejection, but because of the expenses they have made in the previous withdrawals by taking them to the Constitutional Court (TC).
According to the newspaper La Tercera, the Executive has had to disburse 24 million pesos, in total, to guarantee the brake of the last two turns. Most of this amount has gone to the lawyer Gastón Gómez and the former president of the TC Marisol Peña, who have been the representatives of the position of La Moneda.
In the second withdrawal of 10%, Gómez and his partner José Francisco García received a payment of 420 UF (about 12 million pesos), charged to the Ministry of Finance, to draft and present the request, which he won in the TC.
By the third retreat, the government faced it differently. To face the five projects that were discussed, the work was divided between Gómez’s team, which was in charge of the three transitory projects, and another led by Peña, in charge of the two of a permanent nature.
These last two projects were rejected in the general discussion that took place in the Lower House and were finally shelved, so the representation of La Moneda before the TC was assumed by Gómez, leaving Peña out of the defense, having worked on this line.
The text that Gómez made about the third withdrawal was similar to that of the second, so he was not paid money for the document, and that as the appeal was not accepted for processing before the court and, therefore, there was no defense, he was not paid for it, they explained from the lawyer’s environment.
Although Peña’s request was not the one that reached the TC, in July the General Secretariat of the Presidency (Segpres) paid him 12 million gross pesos.
