Trial Procedures
The criminal procedural law provides for the right to a fair trial and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right. National and regional prosecutors investigate crimes, formulate charges, and prosecute cases. Three-judge panels form the court of first instance; the process is oral and adversarial, trials are public, and judges rule on guilt and dictate sentences. Court records, rulings, and findings were generally accessible to the public.
In all cases, the law provides for the right to legal counsel and public defender's offices in all fifteen Regions and the Santiago Metropolitan Region, provide free professional legal counsel to anyone seeking such assistance. When requested by other human rights organizations or family members, the NGO Corporation for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of the People and other lawyers working pro bono assisted detainees during interrogations and represented some persons charged with terrorist acts in court. Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence and have a right of appeal.
If formal charges are filed in civilian courts against a member of the military or police, for acts performed on duty, the military prosecutor can ask for jurisdiction, which the Supreme Court occasionally granted. This was particularly significant in human rights cases from the period covered by the Amnesty Law, since military courts were more likely to grant amnesty without a full investigation. Military courts have the authority to charge and try civilians for terrorist acts, aggressions against on duty police or military personnel, and sedition. Persons arrested during demonstrations for assaulting a police officer also are brought before military tribunals.
Civilians prosecuted in military courts have the same legal protections as those prosecuted in civilian courts. They are entitled to counsel, the charges are public, the sentencing guidelines are the same (with the exception that the death penalty can be imposed in a military court during war time but never in a civilian court), and the Supreme Court ultimately may hear appeals. A military prosecutor formulates charges and conducts the investigation, and the first instance of appeal is in a court-martial, composed of two civilian and three military judges.
Read more about this topic: Judiciary Of Chile
Famous quotes containing the words trial and/or procedures:
“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 9:32-33.
Job, about God.
“Young children learn in a different manner from that of older children and adults, yet we can teach them many things if we adapt our materials and mode of instruction to their level of ability. But we miseducate young children when we assume that their learning abilities are comparable to those of older children and that they can be taught with materials and with the same instructional procedures appropriate to school-age children.”
—David Elkind (20th century)