[ad_1]
The Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago ratified the ruling of the 8th Court of Guarantee of Santiago, which had rejected that the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) a complaint against Carabineros for crimes of obstruction of the investigation and falsification of public instrument. This, in the case of the alleged beating that a citizen suffered by police officers in October of last year, when the curfew was in force. According to the interpretation made by the uniformed police, this resolution establishes criteria that limit the presentation of complaints from the NHRI in areas that are not within its competence.
With this resolution, the Santiago Court of Appeals considers that the NHRI will only be able to hear facts that are related to crimes against humanity. According to the appellate court, “the National Institute of Human Rights cannot preach that there is a unity between the crimes of torture and very serious serious injuries with those of falsification and obstruction of justice and, in this way, maintain that it is entitled to to sue for the latter ”.
In any case, the ruling indicates that “the impossibility of complaining for facts that could eventually constitute the crimes of falsification and obstruction of the investigation does not mean that they are left out of the criminal investigation currently underway, as the same defenses have stated in court ”.
For the director of the Carabineros Justice Directorate, Colonel (J) Jaime Elgueta, the resolution “is based on the fact that the courts once again establish the competence of the National Institute of Human Rights to carry out criminal actions as plaintiff, by maintaining that this body does not have the legitimacy to formalize a complaint for crimes of obstruction of the investigation and for falsification of public instrument ”.
Colonel (J) Elgueta adds that “it must have been the courts of law who, in application of the law, have established jurisprudentially the limit of action of the National Institute of Human Rights, returning to its legal channel its action as plaintiff, which is it had exceeded the claim that was finally rejected by the Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, by setting specific legal criteria in its actions ”.
