Constitutional Rights and Duties: Chile’s Legal Framework

Posted on Dec 9, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

Chapter III: Of Constitutional Rights and Duties

Article 19

The Constitution assures all people:

1. The right to life and physical and mental integrity of the person.

   • The law protects the life of the unborn.
   • The death penalty may only be established for an offense under a law passed with a qualified quorum.
   • The use of any unlawful coercion is prohibited.

2. Equality before the law.

   • In Chile, there is no privileged person or group.
   • In Chile, there are no slaves, and anyone who steps on its territory remains free.
   • Men and women are equal before the law.
   • Neither the law nor any authority may establish arbitrary differences.

3. Equal protection of the law in the exercise of their rights.

   • Everyone has the right to a legal defense in the way that the law provides, and no authority or individual may prevent, restrict, or distort the appropriate intervention of counsel if it is required.
   • For members of the Armed Forces and Public Order and Security, this right shall be governed, in administrative and disciplinary matters, by the relevant standards of their respective statutes.
   • The law shall settle any means to give advice and legal defense to those unable to procure it themselves.
   • No one shall be tried by special commissions, but by the court determined by law and that is established by it before the perpetration of the act.
   • Any decision of an organ exercising jurisdiction must be based on a prior legally processed process. It is for the legislator to always set guarantees of a sound and fair procedure and research.
   • The law cannot presume criminal responsibility.
   • No offense is punishable with a penalty other than that which points to a law enacted prior to its commission, unless a new law is favorable to the affected.
   • No law shall establish penalties without the sanctioned behavior being specifically described in it.

4. Respect and protection of private life and the honor of the person and their family.

5. The inviolability of the home and all forms of private communication. The home may only be searched, and private documents and communications intercepted, opened, or recorded in cases and forms determined by law.

6. Freedom of conscience, the manifestation of all beliefs, and the free exercise of all faiths that are not inconsistent with morality, good practice, or public order.

   • Religious denominations may erect and maintain temples and their dependencies under the conditions of occupational safety and health established by law and ordinances.
   • Churches, denominations, and institutions of any religious worship shall have the rights granted and recognized, with respect to property, by the laws currently in force.
   • Temples and dependencies used exclusively for worship shall be exempt from any kind of contributions.

7. The right to personal freedom and individual security.

   Therefore:

   1. Every person has the right to reside and remain in any place of the Republic, move from one place to another, and enter and leave its territory, provided that the standards set out in the law are observed and without prejudice to others.
   2. No person shall be deprived of personal freedom or restricted in it except in the cases and in the manner specified by the Constitution and laws.
   3. No person may be arrested or detained except by official order of a public official specifically empowered by law and after that order has been legally intimated. However, anyone caught in a flagrant crime may be arrested for the sole purpose of being brought before a competent judge within twenty-four hours. If the authority arrests or detains any person, they shall, within forty-eight hours, give notice to the competent judge, making the affected person available to them. The judge may, by a well-founded resolution, extend the term up to five days and up to ten days in the case of investigating facts qualified by law as terrorist behaviors.
   4. No person may be arrested or detained, subject to pre-trial detention or imprisonment, except in their home or in public places designated for this purpose. Those in charge of prisons cannot receive anyone as arrested or detained, prosecuted, or imprisoned, without recording the corresponding order issued by an authority with legal capacity in a public register. No isolation may prevent the officer in charge of the detention facility from visiting the arrested or detained, prosecuted, or imprisoned person who is in it. This official is required, whenever the arrested or detained person so requests, to transmit to the competent judge a copy of the detention order, or to demand that they be given that copy, or to give themselves a certificate stating that the person is under arrest if this requirement was omitted at the time of their detention.
   5. Release of the defendant shall proceed unless the detention or preventive imprisonment is considered by the judge as necessary for the investigations or for the safety of the offended party or society. The law establishes the conditions and procedures to obtain it. The appeal of the resolution that rules on the liberty of the accused for the offenses referred to in Article 9 shall be heard by the appropriate Superior Court, composed exclusively of tenured members. The resolution that approves or grants it must be agreed upon unanimously. While freedom lasts, the accused will always be subject to the surveillance measures of the authority that the law contemplates.
   6. In criminal cases, the accused or defendant shall not be compelled to testify under oath about their own actions, nor may their ascendants, descendants, spouse, and others be required to testify against them, as appropriate and according to the circumstances determined by law.
   7. The penalty of confiscation of property shall not be imposed, without prejudice to confiscation in cases established by law; however, such penalty shall apply to illicit associations.
   8. Loss of pension rights may not be applied as a sanction.
   9. Once a final dismissal or acquittal has been issued, the person who has been subjected to prosecution or convicted in any instance by a resolution that the Supreme Court declares unjustifiably erroneous or arbitrary shall be entitled to be compensated by the State for the economic and moral damages they have suffered. The compensation shall be determined judicially in a brief and summary procedure, and the evidence shall be assessed conscientiously.

8. The right to live in an environment free from contamination. It is the duty of the State to ensure that this right is not affected and to protect the preservation of nature. The law may establish specific restrictions on the exercise of certain rights or freedoms to protect the environment.

9. The right to health protection.

   • The State protects free and equal access to the promotion, protection, and recovery of health and the rehabilitation of the individual.
   • It shall also be responsible for the coordination and control of health-related actions.
   • It is the preferential duty of the State to guarantee the implementation of health actions, whether provided through public or private institutions, in the form and conditions determined by law, which may establish compulsory contributions.
   • Each person shall have the right to choose the healthcare system they wish, whether it be state or private.

10. The right to education.

    • Education aims at the full development of the person in the various stages of their life.
    • Parents have the preferential right and duty to educate their children. The State shall grant special protection for the exercise of this right.
    • The State is required to promote early childhood education and ensure free access and fiscal financing for the second level of transition, without this being a requirement for entry into basic education.
    • Basic education and secondary education are mandatory, and the State must fund a free system for this purpose, designed to ensure access to them for the entire population. In the case of secondary education, this system, in accordance with the law, will operate until the age of 21.
    • It is also the duty of the State to encourage the development of education at all levels; stimulate scientific and technological research, artistic creation, and the protection and growth of the Nation’s cultural heritage.
    • It is the duty of the community to contribute to the development and improvement of education.

11. Freedom of instruction includes the right to open, organize, and maintain educational establishments.

    • Academic freedom has no limitations other than those imposed by morality, good customs, public order, and national security.
    • Officially recognized education may not be oriented to propagate any partisan political tendency.
    • Parents have the right to choose the educational establishment for their children.
    • An organic constitutional law shall establish the minimum requirements that shall be required at each level of basic and secondary education and shall indicate the objective standards of general application that enable the State to ensure their compliance. This law shall likewise establish the requirements for the official recognition of educational establishments at all levels.

12. Freedom of opinion and information, without prior censorship, in any form and by any means, without prejudice to responding to crimes and abuses committed in the exercise of these freedoms, in accordance with the law, which shall be of a qualified quorum.

    • The law may in no case establish a state monopoly over the media.
    • Any individual or legal entity offended or unduly alluded to by any means of social communication has the right to have their statement or rectification freely disseminated, under the conditions determined by law, by the media outlet where that information was issued.
    • Every natural or legal entity has the right to establish, publish, and distribute newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, under the conditions indicated by law.
    • The State, those universities, and other persons or entities determined by law may establish, operate, and maintain television stations.
    • There will be a National Television Council, autonomous and with legal personality, in charge of ensuring the proper functioning of this means of communication. A law of qualified quorum shall establish the organization and other functions and powers of the Council.
    • The law shall regulate a system for qualifying film production for display.

13. The right to meet peacefully without prior permission and without weapons. Meetings in squares, streets, and other public places shall be governed by the general provisions of the police.

14. The right to petition the authority on any matter of public or private interest, without any limitation other than to proceed in respectful and convenient terms.

15. The right to associate without prior permission.

    • To enjoy legal personality, associations must be constituted in accordance with the law.
    • No one can be compelled to belong to an association.
    • Associations contrary to morality, public order, and State security are prohibited.
    • Political parties shall not interfere in activities outside their own or have any privilege or monopoly on citizen participation; the list of their members shall be registered with the State’s electoral service, which shall keep it confidential and accessible to the members of the respective party; their accounting shall be public; the sources of their funding may not originate from money, goods, donations, contributions, or loans from abroad; their statutes must stipulate the rules to ensure effective internal democracy. An Organic Constitutional Law shall regulate other matters concerning them and the sanctions to be implemented for non-compliance with its precepts, which may include dissolution. Associations, movements, organizations, or groups of people that pursue or carry out activities typical of political parties without complying with the above rules are illegal and shall be punished in accordance with the aforementioned Organic Constitutional Law.
    • The Constitution guarantees political pluralism. Parties, movements, or other forms of organization whose objectives, acts, or behaviors do not respect the basic principles of the democratic and constitutional regime, seek to establish a totalitarian system, or advocate, incite, or promote violence as a method of political action are unconstitutional. It is the responsibility of the Constitutional Court to declare this unconstitutionality.
    • Notwithstanding the other sanctions established in the Constitution or the law, persons who have participated in the events that motivate the declaration of unconstitutionality referred to in the preceding paragraph may not participate in the formation of other political parties, movements, or other forms of political organization, nor may they run for popularly elected public office or hold the positions mentioned in numbers 1) to 6) of Article 57 for a period of five years from the Court’s resolution. If at that time the aforementioned persons are in possession of the indicated duties or positions, they shall lose them by operation of law.
    • Persons sanctioned under this provision may not be rehabilitated during the period indicated in the preceding paragraph. The duration of the disabilities covered by this paragraph shall be doubled in case of recidivism.