On June 17, 2014, the Constitutional Court of Chile handed down a landmark ruling on the jurisdiction of military courts. The ruling came in a case brought by the National Human Rights Institute after three Carabineros officers tortured a fourth. This summary appears in Cooperativa.cl. The opinion of the court can be found here. The court found, 6-3, that the officers' misconduct was not an act of service (i.e., in the line of duty) and hence lay outside the permissible limits of military court jurisdiction. "In light of the new standards on military jurisdiction, there is no constitutionally permissible justification for a person -- civilian or military -- to be prevented from exercising rights as a victim of a criminal offense, and being deprived of a rational and fair process."Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Major jurisdictional ruling by Constitutional Court of Chile
On June 17, 2014, the Constitutional Court of Chile handed down a landmark ruling on the jurisdiction of military courts. The ruling came in a case brought by the National Human Rights Institute after three Carabineros officers tortured a fourth. This summary appears in Cooperativa.cl. The opinion of the court can be found here. The court found, 6-3, that the officers' misconduct was not an act of service (i.e., in the line of duty) and hence lay outside the permissible limits of military court jurisdiction. "In light of the new standards on military jurisdiction, there is no constitutionally permissible justification for a person -- civilian or military -- to be prevented from exercising rights as a victim of a criminal offense, and being deprived of a rational and fair process."
Postscript: further analysis (in Spanish) can be found here: http://www.theclinic.cl/2014/06/18/tribunal-constitucional-resuelve-que-justicia-militar-vulnera-el-debido-proceso-y-aplica-estandar-internacional-de-ddhh/
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