Chile’s justice minister, Fernando Rabat, confirmed on Wednesday from Congress that the ministry had reduced sentences for 56 people convicted of sexual abuse and rape of minors. Interferencia reported it first. Rabat said the administrative acts apply Supreme Court doctrine, drawn from amparo rulings from before the 2022 law that banned such benefits. It is an administrative confirmation. It is not a new amnesty, and it does not change the 2022 statute.

“Nothing more than that: it is compliance with Supreme Court judgments,” Rabat said, as quoted by La Tercera. After 2022 the law forbids benefits for these offences. Before that, he said, the requests were also refused, and the Court granted amparos. The ministry, in the resolution, cites each of those rulings. Asked whether the government shared the criterion, he answered: “The government does not comment on judicial rulings.”

Cooperativa, independent of La Tercera, gives Interferencia’s count: 27 sexual-abuse cases, 29 rape, one request refused, between 11 March and 13 September. The decrees, the station writes, are issued “by order of the President of the Republic,” after the sentence-reduction commission, the Seremi and the social-reintegration division. Law 19.856 was amended in 2022. Inside the ministry there is an argument about retroactivity. That is not a new vote in Parliament.

The new spokesman, Segegob under-secretary Gonzalo Arenas, called the reporting “rather malicious,” because it would imply an Executive will to pardon. The procedure, he said, is set in law, not arbitrary. He added that the ministry has each case file and has nothing to hide, including if the Chamber of Deputies summons Rabat. That is the government’s reading. It is not a new statute.

Cutting a sentence by decree, citing Court doctrine, does not erase the conviction. It does not reopen the facts. It does not lift the 2022 ban for offences after that date.

Source consulted: The government sets out the grounds for sentence cuts granted to 56 people convicted of sexual abuse — La Tercera.

Image: the Palace of the Courts of Justice, Santiago de Chile, 5 July 2017, Felipe Restrepo Acosta, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The courts building, not Wednesday’s briefing.

Sources consulted: The government has reduced sentences for 56 people convicted of sexual abuse and rape of minors — Cooperativa.