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The National Association of Prosecutors (ANF) raised its voice against the head of the Public Ministry, Jorge Abbott, and requested the resignation of the executive director Francisca Werth, whom they accused of lack of “suitability and knowledge of the institutional mission” and lacking commitment to work.
The tone used by the ANF is the result of a long process of reflection from which a series of claims for poor working conditions emanated, which, in their opinion, negatively affect the criminal prosecution they carry out on a daily basis.
According to the request, to which the Research Unit of Radio Bío Bío agreed, prosecutors express a feeling of “orphanhood” in their relationship with the authority.
The expression points to an excess of causes for those, for example, who investigate sexual crimes. They insist that each of the attached prosecutors should not be in charge of more than 200 causes per year and have a team to help them.
The request, according to the prosecutors, is based on the fact that together with investigating, taking statements, attending detention control hearings, writing accusations, participating in oral trials, they must at the same time worry about complying with the statistics of the management goals and evaluate the work of the staff under their charge.
Another area where they require Abbott’s attention is domestic violence crimes. There, they assure that the substantiation of cases exceeds 300 per official and requires a “minimum support team of an assistant lawyer and a manager.” The issue, according to the brief, does not improve in cases of violent crimes, where the same phenomenon occurs.
According to the presentation, the overload of work not only affects the quality of an investigation, but also the due care and protection of the victims.
“Over the years, we have seen how prosecutors are forced to divide their long working hours between criminal prosecution and administrative tasks, to the detriment of the integrity of our associates and of proper care for the victims. That is why we request to balance these tasks by providing more resources to ensure the correct (…) care of the victims ”, it reads in the presentation.
Another requirement is that the Public Ministry does not respect, according to the letter, the “right to rest” or compensate those who work night shifts and weekends.
And they ask: “(…) concretely, order all the Regional Prosecutors of the country, that in the act comply and enforce the legal provisions of the Administrative Statute in matters of compensatory rest (…) without prejudice to carry out (…) within a period no more than 30 days, the modifications to the Staff Regulations of Prosecutors (…) ”, warns the group.
CDE coup
It is no mystery to anyone that the Public Ministry is one of the worst evaluated institutions in opinion polls. Excess provisional files, slow processing of cases, different criminal prosecution criteria depending on the prosecutor’s office where an investigation is initiated, low convictions achieved, among many other aspects.
However, the ANF considers that some criticisms are unfair and nullify any positive aspect of its work. For this reason, Jorge Abbott was asked to implement a “Effective communication policy” to protect prosecutors “against unjustified questions in the media.”
Added to their concerns was a recent agreement adopted by the State Defense Council (CDE), as a result of which it is being evaluated to sue a group of prosecutors for negligent act in a case of sexual crimes, where the accused was declared innocent, but spent more than a year in preventive detention. For this reason, the Treasury must pay a compensation of $ 70 million.
The legal action analyzed by the CDE seeks that the persecutors return the amount that came from the state coffers.
Survey
Recently, the union learned that the National Prosecutor’s Office conducts a user satisfaction survey, in which the opinion of the accused or convicted persons will be required.
In this regard, they consider that “in that part” should be eliminated “any record that has been obtained to date.”
Sources of the institution indicated that the measurement seeks precisely to develop a policy to improve the work of the Public Ministry and that it is far from affecting the prosecutors.
Anyway, the truth is that the ANF’s annoyance with Abbott is greater. In one of their requirements, they request that the executive director of the organization, Francisca werth, present the immediate resignation of your position.
The criticism is frontal against Werth because they accuse her of lack of suitability for the position, ignorance of the field work and lack of institutional commitment.
In any case, this request is unlikely to be honored as Werth is Abbott’s right hand man.
Consulted by this means, the president of the ANF, Claudio Uribe, declared: “The presentation that we have made summarizes the discontent of the prosecutors. Dissatisfied with not having sufficient means to fulfill our role of seeing that the resources, which are always scarce, are destined rather to administrative tasks and not to support (…) the criminal prosecution ”.
And he added: “In addition to this, we know that the defendants are given a part of the task of evaluating us, which in our opinion clearly implies a disconnection of the authorities with the very nature of our function.”
“In this sense, I really there is a great fatigue among the prosecutors due to what is happening and we have no other option but to make this presentation ”, concluded.
This medium consulted the National Prosecutor’s Office about the scope of the petition. In this regard, it was indicated that yesterday a council was held with regional prosecutors where the presentation was analyzed. The conclusion emanating from the meeting is that the head of the Public Ministry will send a response to the ANF as soon as possible.
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