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It was 10:30 on Friday the 12th when the minister Ivan Aróstica he stamped his electronic signature on a resolution. By internal regulations, as the oldest judge, Aróstica had to resolve a series of complaints of workplace harassment that were brought to the Constitutional Court. “A summary investigation is instituted against the president, Minister Mrs. María Luisa Brahm Barril,” reads one of the final paragraphs of the official letter signed by the magistrate.
Both ministers have a rough history in common. Upon assuming the presidency of the TC in August 2019, Brahm hinted at various irregularities in the management of Aróstica, his predecessor. The first thing was the summary that he instructed against the former head of Finance Julio Ortiz, putting a blanket of doubts regarding the use of money in the institution, and then came his sayings that pointed to a delay in the processes within the TC and assumptions delays on the brink of corruption, which led to the opening of a criminal investigation that today has Aróstica himself and also Minister José Ignacio Vásquez as accused.
Today, very early in the morning, Brahm was notified of the decision to open a summary against him in which four accusations are grouped. The youngest minister within the TC, Rodrigo Pica, was appointed as instructor. Added to this situation is an official letter sent a few days ago by the State Defense Council (CDE), which states that This Wednesday 17 will take place the preparation of the labor lawsuit, for labor abuse, for the lawsuit filed by the former rapporteur Pilar Arellano against Brahm and the ministers Cristián Letelier and Gonzalo García.
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The panorama has complicated the situation of the president of the TC, who now must not only take charge of setting up tables and directing the plenary sessions, but also worrying about her defense in the face of the accusations against her, one of them coming from Julio Ortiz, the Former Director of Administration and Finance, who -in his letter of resignation and who was dismissed- speaks of having been a victim of workplace harassment practices, pointing directly to Brahm. On March 11, when his complaint was already filed, and he had already resigned from his position, he sent a letter describing alleged mistreatment and assured that he was also making the complaint motivated “by those officials, like me, their work, family and health life have been affected during the current presidency of the court. We share this experience and work environment that is difficult to understand and explain. I hope it contributes to strengthening the institutional framework, incorporating mechanisms that anticipate, warn and stop situations that could constitute workplace harassment and / or violation of some fundamental rights of the civil servant ”.
Another of the complaints that Minister Aróstica attached is related to a letter from the Association of Officials of the TC in which describe yelling, slamming doors, and harassing behaviors attributed to the president.
Added to this is a fact reported by the court secretary, María Angélica Barriga, who explained that in a meeting for the year’s budget held in January, something would have annoyed Brahm, who yelled at him in front of other officials and abruptly ended the meeting, leaving the place.
The most recent accusation is a letter sent by Cristián Suárez, Brahm’s former driver. This was admitted on March 5 and in The letter states that despite having worked for 31 years in the Carabineros, he never suffered the situations experienced during the months who had served as Brahm’s conductor. He details that since he was hired he interacted a few times with her and that, outright, he was ignored, and ensures that the president did not speak to him and the instructions came through the chief of staff or secretary of the TC. In the letter, Suárez recounts two episodes that, in his opinion, are intolerable situations and it is that he says that Brahm shouted at him loudly on March 1, for the inauguration of the judicial year, and the last time on March 3, when he transferred her to her vaccination site.
For Aróstica, all the antecedents related to the complaints are “serious” and, therefore, he determined the opening of the summary against his successor.
After notifying Brahm of his summary, the instructor Rodrigo Pica maintained that “the complaints about treatment issues that are being asked are internal organizational and relational issues of the institution, about the treatment between those who work in it, They are nothing other than complaints from officials who have followed the course established by current regulations on the matter, and on that basis they will be investigated, within the framework of the agreed order that the court issued years ago in this regard, referring to the powers that the organic law establishes, so any other type of questions or readings are unrelated to it, including political, personal, those that involve questions between ministers or those referring to pending criminal matters ”.
When the president of the TC was consulted for these accusations and antecedents, it was not possible to obtain an answer.
