Last Wednesday, in the Chamber of Deputies a series of bills were finished voting that were put on the table, for which the legislative week was suspended in order to focus exclusively on legislating on security. A series of projects were set up – some of the Government’s initiative, and others, parliamentary motions – that have to do with many of the measures that were defined in the Transversal Table for Security, which worked to arrive at approximately 70 measures, some of them legislative and others administrative, and that worked with the Government. This is how the deputy and member of the Security Commission of the Chamber, Alejandra Placencia (PC), details how was the heated week in Congress this week.
Privileged self-defense. It is one of the most talked about measures of the Naín-Retamal Law, which invokes the presumption of the justified use of service weapons and other means of defense by uniformed and plainclothes police. Specifically, the bill uses the current figure of article 10, No. 6 of the Criminal Code, which establishes the presumption of the use of self-defense when a person tries to prevent a criminal from entering certain private properties. One of these amendments concerns circumstances exempting from criminal liability. Here is added this mechanism of “privileged legitimate defense” for the police officers of the Forces of Order and Security. This applies in case of use of a lethal weapon in the exercise of their functions.
A measure that does not generate acceptance in Apruebo Dignidad, and on which Deputy Placencia said that: “We put a long time ago the warning voice on this particular issue, because I am a member of the Security Commission and there we already had an open debate on whether this should be allowed to move forward or not. In this particular article, which as I say, does not regulate the exercise of police work, while the police have the possibility of using their service weapon at any event and this will not be investigated.”
-What is the reason for its provision contrary to certain specific aspects of the Naín-Retamal Law?
What we do not accept, in the particular case of the Naín-Retamal Law, is an article that has to do with privileged legitimate defense. Many other aspects we voted for, and in percentage that are in line with what I say, to fully strengthen police work. But this particular thing it does is leave the police outside the rule of law, even international organizations have already pronounced on it, experts in matters of crime and security have also mentioned it. In the few countries where this operates it has meant an increase in deaths or irreparable damage on the street to innocent people, in procedures. So, with all that it has cost us to strengthen democracy and our institutions, above all to recover legitimacy in the police institutions, today with this they would again be questioning and questioning.
When did you realize that the implications of this regulation could contradict the government’s security agenda?
A long time ago we sounded the alarm on this particular issue, because I am a member of the Security Commission and there we already had an open debate on whether this should be allowed to move forward or not, in this particular article, which as I say, does not regulate the exercise of police work, while the police have the possibility of using their service weapon at any event and this will not be investigated. That is, it is presumed that, although irreparable damage or even death occurs, that service weapon was well used.
Therefore, with this type of measures what is being advanced is to promote the easy trigger, and that is the risky thing, because ultimately those who can be harmed are innocent, and not necessarily meet the objective of deterring or catching those who are generating this feeling of criminality in the streets and in the populations. That is the risk, and we had that discussion in the (Security) Commission, and we had very fundamental differences – in this particular area, and unfortunately we could not settle them. I understand that there is a part within the coalition and the ruling party that has the same objective as us: to strengthen police work. But we propose an alternative that is within the framework of the rule of law, an alternative thate strengthens police work and makes it less questionable, because what we want is not to deregulate but to provide a framework of certainty and clarity so that police officers can do their job well, and that is to raise the rules of use of force to legal rank.
Are you confident in the changes that the bill will eventually undergo in its discussion in the Senate? What is your view of the right and your position in favor of this type of security initiative?
Fortunately, the government understood and “put an eye” on the fact that this particular article, that of privileged legitimate defense, has a risk to democracy and has a risk for citizens, does not protect the police, and therefore, indications have already been entered in the Senate. We value that, because it was the government’s commitment. Now, we must study these indications, we are going to collaborate to improve what came out of the Chamber of Deputies because of the risks it has – and that I just mentioned. But I want to say one thing: here the right has been considered and permanently invited for legislative discussions on security, and they have withdrawn from the table. The budget we voted for security, in the budget of the Nation, was a historic increase, and the right voted against it. In the Transversal Table for the Security Agreement, a good part of their proposals – including the Naín-Retamal Law – were committed to putting urgency to it now.
So, do you attribute all the responsibility to the opposition? Do you think that today there is an over-politicization of the security agenda?
Many aspects were considered and we achieved consensus, however they decided to make the political point and to hit the government they left the table. An agreement was signed for us to make a table to make this bill that would raise the rules of use of force to legal rank, and unilaterally, a part of the right left the table. So, they have stopped the Law against drug trafficking that we approved a little less than two weeks ago, they have stopped it in the Constitutional Court (TC). So, they say that they care about security and the Carabineros in particular, but the truth is that all these acts prove the opposite, because what we must do is try to stop politicizing the police, which is what the right does and that is very harmful to the country. I believe that the government is going to continue making attempts to make sanity prevail here, and we are also in that disposition, but the truth is that the use of the police to try to make political points, to take it to its trench as if it were from a single sector and not from all Chileans. it is something that they have to reconsider, because in this way you cannot make a State policy consistent with the needs of the country.
What was the degree of responsibility of Chile Vamos and the right in general in the case of the Naín-Retamal Law?
The right, what it has done in this past, is to try to convey that with this particular law the police are protected, and that is not the case. Security does not depend on a single law, and also what the right does is try to inhibit democratic debate, transmitting that if things are not approved as they want, then they have no value. That shows how the right seeks to impose its terms instead of carrying out an agenda, which as I said, we have been building in the heat of the diversity that Congress has. The important thing is to have a state outlook, because finally when the laws are badly made or erratic measures are taken in terms of security, it is the citizens who suffer them, not the political class.
And finally, how complex is it for you – as I approve of dignity and as a Communist Party – to be in favor of measures that could conflict with the principles and ideals of your sector? What about states of emergency, as in the Araucanía Region, for example, which in 2022 had the support of your party and the Government?
In relation to the state of exception, that was a collective definition that we took at the party level, and in accordance with the ruling party. With some exceptions, the vast majority understood that this was a measure that was also going to be applied in a limited manner or, rather, with certain guarantees that made us all think that fundamental rights were not going to be carried under any circumstances. There were certain guarantees on the part of the Government that its application had a rather dissuasive objective and to generate conditions so that police work could be carried out, in what meant pursuing gangs in timber theft and drug trafficking, which are basically those who have more complicated today in southern Chile. So, we made a coh agreement.We agreed that this application of the state of emergency had this line of generating appropriate conditions, which would lower the levels of violence in the area, so that the State that had withdrawn many years ago could enter from there. That had a value.
And of course, obviously these are issues that we have to debate so that basically they are not transformed into measures that naturalize the installation of the Armed Forces (FF. AA) in territories, when what we have to do is strengthen the capacities of the police so that they can do their job. Faced with this, there is an issue that we have assumed with great conviction, and that is that knowing that there is a real need for the population to achieve higher levels of security and that this security is integral – with an equitable use of resources – we believe that a profound reform of the Carabineros is necessary, that the training is currently different for what the new types of crime mean. strengthen their capacities, provide them with training in human rights, training in gender and domestic violence, among other issues that they have to face in the populations.
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