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A reserved summary, carried out by the Institutional Prosecutor’s Office of the Comptroller’s Office, was the one that the body directed by the comptroller Jorge Bermúdez had been carrying out for several months. After the investigation stage, on Thursday of last week, the comptroller body charged seven generals of the High Command of the Carabineros.
The charges filed were related to eventual irregularities by these senior uniformed police officers in the control of public order during the social crisis unleashed on October 18 of last year. The officers notified by the Comptroller’s Office were the generals Ricardo Yanez, third in command and National Head of Order and Security; Jorge Valenzuela, National Director of Support to Police Operations; Mauricio Rodriguez, head of the Metropolitan Area; Enrique Bassaletti, head of the Santiago Este Zone; Enrique Monras, head of the Santiago Oeste Zone; Hugo Zenteno, Head of the Valparaíso Zone; and Jean Camus, logistics director.
The event surprised the government and the Carabineros, but not for those who are aware of the oversight work that the Comptroller’s Office undertook on certain issues related to the social crisis. In fact, it was on October 29 of last year that the Comptroller’s Office officiated the Carabineros requesting all protocols for action against demonstrations, especially those related to the use of tear gas and riot control procedures. Then, on November 11, Bermúdez held a hearing with the director of the National Institute of Human Rights, Sergio Micco, where the actions of the Carabineros in the October demonstrations were addressed. Later, at the end of January this year, the comptroller received the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. At that meeting, they also discussed police action in the context of the demonstrations.
Three of the generals —Mauricio Rodríguez, Enrique Bassaletti and Enrique Monrás— have already defined their defenses and signed the lawyers Sergio Rodriguez, Carlos Cortes and Jorge Martinez to make their discharges. This, because after the notification of charges, the officials involved have a deadline to present their version of the alleged facts. After this, the Comptroller’s Office will evaluate the response of the uniformed officers involved and will eventually propose sanctions to the superior of the institution. In this case, the managing general, Mario Rozas, which will be accepted or rejected by him and then confirmed or rejected by the President Sebastian Piñera.
Rodríguez and Bassaletti’s defenses today made their first public reaction to the Comptroller’s summary. In a statement released today, to which he agreed Third, the lawyers regret “that the rules of reserve of this type of administrative act had been violated, since without having been notified at least two Generals have learned of the formulation of charges against them.”
The lawyers, in turn, refer to the merits of the alleged administrative offenses carried out by both generals. “Regarding the merits of the charges made by the CGR, we must reiterate that the High Command of the Chilean Police, jointly and, in each case, individually within each of its powers, successively carried out and executed all reasonable and possible actions to prevent, prevent and punish eventual behaviors verified outside the protocol produced as a consequence of the multiple criminal acts that occurred since October 2019 and the serious damage to public order and safety known to all”The statement reads. They then add that the generals “were not passive in the face of serious acts of public order, constantly adapting and reiterating their instructions and action protocols.”
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Along the same lines, they dismiss the charges made against their clients: “From this point of view, we have the intimate conviction that no administrative responsibility has been incurred, since all the aforementioned measures were taken, without omitting any action in accordance with the various situations that arose, all within the existing material and personnel capacities”.
The document then addresses the administrative process carried out by the Comptroller’s Office against the generals. “Regarding the actions of the CGR, the exercise of the sanctioning power must be exercised in accordance with the constitutional and legal norms in force, as well as respecting the principles and guarantees of all citizens. From this point of view, It is illegal for the CGR to interfere in these matters, since its knowledge corresponds exclusively and exclusively to the General Director of Carabineros de Chile, all in accordance with the LOC that regulates them and the respective regulations“Says the statement.
However, those who are aware of the procedure of the supervisory body assure that the Comptroller’s Office has the constitutional mandate to supervise the effective compliance of the laws, regulations, protocols and other legal bodies that regulate the actions of the Public Administration. That, say the same sources, also includes the administrative acts of the Carabineros.
Then both defenders, who are providing legal advice pro bono, insist on the point that the controlling entity, in their opinion, should not have initiated a summary of this nature: “The CGR cannot enter into a pronouncement on the merit or legality of a technical decision in the use of means or personnel used to safeguard public order, being matters that remain exclusively within the scope of action and decision of the Forces of Order and Security. Likewise, in the manner in which the charges known so far have been formulated, sIt is more about a possible political responsibility for decisions or omissions, which in no case is within the scope of the CGR, but rather to the organizations and persons established by the Constitution, on which the aforementioned General Officers hierarchically depend ”.
Finally, the attorneys Rodríguez, Cortés and Martínez close by commenting that, according to them, the Comptroller’s Office is filing administrative charges for an issue that actually corresponds to criminal responsibilities that are not within its competence. “Notwithstanding the foregoing, we believe that in this ‘onslaught’ by the CGR there has been a serious competition problem and that it could constitute a case of misuse of power, since from the tenor of the known charges, what is sought is the determination of eventual criminal responsibility of the General Officers. The foregoing is a matter that is known to the Courts of Justice, therefore, according to the LOC of the CGR, it must refrain from knowing these matters. It is, apparently of the undersigned, a very serious infringement of the country’s institutions ”, the text ends.
Despite this, the administrative lawyer Luis Lamb distance yourself from this posture. “I do not share those judgments at all. I think they are legally wrong. What is investigated is administrative responsibility. Comptroller only investigates and proposes sanction, if justified. It does not have a sanctioning power independent of the authority“, says Cordero. The also academic of Right of the University of Chile adds that”With that thesis, the Comptroller’s Office could not instruct any summary in any public department”.
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