An unprecedented apology from the body representing Chile’s judges for their inability to uphold the rule of law when they backed the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s should be welcomed.
While acknowledging its members’ wrongdoings in failing to protect basic rights of the people during the police state period, the National Association of Magistrates of the Judiciary also asked Chileans, including the victims of the dictatorship, for forgiveness.
More than 3,000 men, women and children were murdered and countless others ‘disappeared’ under General Augusto Pinochet’s rule from 1973 to 1990. And throughout those 17 years, the country’s judges in all the branches of the judiciary repeatedly failed to protect the victims from abuse, refusing to intervene in more than 5,000 missing persons’ cases of those believed abducted and/or killed by the military junta, and failing to hold the regime accountable for the crimes it committed against the Chilean people.
It is very sad that it took the judiciary so long – 23 years after the restoration of democracy in Chile – to fully recognise the havoc it implicitly facilitated. Though their apology is welcome, it’s surely not unreasonable to expect that the judges must also pay some form of compensation.
As the South American country prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of its terrible legacy, we urge its judges to join the rest of Chile in a time of ‘reflection’ called by President Sebastian Pinera, who has also apologised for the damage wrought by General Pinochet’s brutal rule.
