Mr. Director,
In the current process of appointing a new national prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, after two failed attempts, due to the fact that the Senate has not approved successive proposals made by the President of the Republic, opinions have been issued to the effect that the Supreme Court would be empowered, both to complete the quina that it once prepared, as to make a new call.
The truth is, for now, the highest court could only do the former. This is how it flows from the Constitution, which very clearly provides that “if the Senate does not approve the proposal of the President of the Republic, the Supreme Court must complete the quina by proposing a new name to replace the rejected one, repeating the procedure until an appointment is approved” (art. 85 paragraph 1).
It is true that the Constitutional Organic Law of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Law No. 19,640) provides for the possibility for the Supreme Court to issue a new call (Article 15), but a careful examination of such regulation suggests that this is appropriate only if fewer than five candidates are presented to the competition (paragraph 4), or if there are no more candidates who have applied for the competition to complete the competition (paragraph 6).
Thus, in the current process of appointing a new national prosecutor, the Supreme Court could only call for a new competition if, after new rejections by the Senate of the proposals of the President of the Republic, there were no longer candidates with whom to complete the quina. It is to be hoped that this scenario will not have to be reached.
Guillermo Oliver Calderon
Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law
Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso
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