Judiciary of Chile

The judiciary of the Republic of Chile includes one Supreme Court, one Constitutional Court, 16 Courts of Appeal, 84 Oral Criminal Tribunals and Guarantee Judges; 7 Military Tribunals; over 300 Local Police Courts; and many other specialized Tribunals and courts in matter of family, labor, customs, taxes, electoral affairs, etc.

The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected this provision in practice.

Chile's legal system is civil law based. It is primarily based on the Chilean Civil Code of 1855, derived from Spanish law and other codes of Continental Europe of the 19th century.

Chilean process provides for a very limited judicial review of legislative acts in the Constitutional Court. It does not accept compulsory International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction.

From the year 2000 onwards, Chile completely overhauled its criminal justice system with the implementation of a new, German-inspired, adversarial system, gradually implemented throughout the country, with the final stage of implementation in the Santiago Metropolitan Region completed on June 16, 2005.

On 4 September 2013, a week before the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought General Pinochet to power, the National Association of Magistrates of the Judiciary apologised for abandoning its role in protecting basic rights during Chile's military rule in the 1970s and 1980s.

The head of the Chilean Judiciary System is the Supreme Court of Justice, a body integrated by twenty one members called "Ministers" (Ministros), one of them is elected by its peers as the President for a two-year period. Supreme Court's Ministers are designated by the President of the Republic, who chooses from five candidates proposed by the Supreme Court, with the agreement of the Senate.

Of the twenty one members of the Supreme Court, sixteen must be judges of Courts of Appeal and five must be lawyers not related to the judiciary system. All members must be lawyers with at least fifteen years of professional exercise, with a distinguished professional or academical career and several other requirements established by the law.

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