The return of the politics of agreements: opposition candidate proposed by President Boric would arrive this week to the Supreme Court

In the next few hours, the minister of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, María Soledad Melo Labra, must be ratified as a member of the Supreme Court. This, after last October 11 the Commission of Constitution, Legislation, Justice and Rules of Procedure of the Senate, after analyzing the office of the President of the Republic and listening to the presentation of the magistrate, voted unanimously its ratification. Thus leaving the way open for the procedure in the Upper House, which must have the agreement of 2/3 of its members in office.
Minister Melo – who is the partner of the minister of the Constitutional Court, Nelson Pozo, and who will occupy the quota left by former Minister Rosa Egnem, retired from the Judiciary in March of this year – has repeatedly been part of the quinas prepared by the Plenary of the Supreme Court. However, this time the appointment process was easy to process and, although his curriculum includes complicated rulings in Human Rights, it flowed quickly. This, because the Government previously agreed on the name of Melo with the different political forces of the Senate, as usually happens (or used to happen) in the 90s, in the so-called politics of agreements.
As is the tonic of this type of appointments, La Moneda tried to maintain the political balances of the highest court. In that line, parliamentary sources explained that “the quota now corresponded to the opposition, after the arrival to the Supreme Court of Minister Diego Simpértigue, linked to progressive sectors.”
In the presentation before the Senate commission, the Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos, said that for the nomination of the candidate was taken into account, among other strengths, her solid academic training, and that she also highlighted being a professional born and trained in regions (Biobío Region), in addition to her performance as a professor of Civil Law in universities in the country.
In the coming months, the President will have to make a second appointment, since in December the former president of the Supreme Court, Guillermo Silva Gundelach, retires. In this regard, negotiations are already under way. “Logic indicates that the seat should remain in the hands of the ruling party,” says a judicial source. Since, of the 21 members of the Supreme Court, only 8 – if María Soledad Melo is confirmed – are women, it is likely that the Head of State will lean towards a magistrate to move towards parity. But that will depend on the list proposed by the plenary.
Among the names of the new quina could be repeated those of Sergio Mora Vallejos (Court of Appeals of Coyhaique), Roberto Contreras Olivares (Court of Appeals of San Miguel), Jessica González Troncoso (Court of Appeals of Santiago).
The following appointments to be made by President Gabriel Boric are: in 2023, those corresponding to the quotas of Haroldo Brito and Jorge Dahm; a year later, Juan Eduardo Fuentes, and in 2025 María Teresa Letelier must finish her career.

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Original source in Spanish