CAPE HORN COURT WAS THE SITE OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE COORDINATION COMMISSION OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
During 2024, the committee also held sessions in Puerto Natales, Porvenir and Punta Arenas.
The president of the Court of Appeals of Punta Arenas, Inés Recart Parra, was part of the first session of the year of the Commission for the Coordination of the Criminal Justice System, which was established for the first time in the communal capital of Cabo de Hornos and with this, in less than a year, the realization of the instance in the four provincial capitals of the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region was realized.
In the first session of the year and as an unprecedented milestone, authorities of the institutions that make up the regional criminal justice system gathered in the plenary hall of the Cabo de Hornos Court, in person and also virtually, to address the needs and good practices that this judicial area requires, both in Puerto Williams and in other localities of the jurisdiction.
The instance is chaired by the Seremi of Justice and Human Rights, Michelle Peutat; and includes the president of the Court of Appeals, Inés Recart; the regional prosecutor and defender, Cristián Crisosto and Verónica Reyes, respectively; the regional head of the PDI, Inspector Prefect Luis Orellana; the head of the Magallanes area of Carabineros, General Marco Alvarado; the regional director (s) of the Chilean Gendarmerie, Lieutenant Colonel Edgardo Pérez, among other authorities in the penal area.
Also, the provincial presidential delegate of Chilean Antarctica, Daniela Calisto and the mayor of the Cabo de Hornos commune, Patricio Fernández, participated in person; in addition to the local prosecutor and defender, Ricardo Torres Bozo and Julio Toledo, respectively.
The authorities made known what the particular needs of the community are, which, mainly in the penal area, consist of crimes that are mostly perpetrated by the floating population and others that correspond to contempt in family matters that imply measures of removal and confinement in a social reintegration center that does not yet exist in the town.
Likewise, the need for intersectoral training was expressed to make known the role of each of the institutions so that the Willemses know where to go when they need a particular judicial service that can be channeled through the corresponding authority. In addition, and as one of the main needs for the penal system to function fully on Navarino Island, the lack of a comprehensive local unit of the Chilean Gendarmerie to be able to meet the custody needs of detained persons and others who must sign in before a local unit or have to spend the night in a center administered and supervised by the institution was reiterated.
Conclusions and agreements
After the session, the president of the Magallanes appellate court, Inés Recart, emphasized the fundamental work that the Gendarmerie of Chile performs in the proper functioning of criminal justice, not only for the fulfillment of a sentence, “but for social reintegration and therefore it is essential that the institution be present in Puerto Williams, with adequate equipment and infrastructure to fulfill its function and prevent people who are serving sentences in freedom from having to travel to Punta Arenas to do so, which could imply an impossibility of making the trip and incurring non-compliance and aggravating the sanction already imposed,” said the minister.
Meanwhile, the regional minister Michelle Peutat valued the joint work with the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals to bring together the table in the provincial capital where the session was still pending. “We have managed to establish ourselves in all the provincial capitals to learn about the particularities and urgent needs of the criminal justice system in the Magallanes Region and the Chilean Antarctic, thus we were able to make diagnoses and develop a work plan for this year, and one of the agreements we reached is to create a permanent table made up of local provincial and communal authorities, and also from the criminal area, in order to improve and contribute to the access to justice for the population,” he said.
In addition, the head of the Carabineros zone in Magallanes, Marco Alvarado, highlighted that the instance was developed for the first time in Puerto Williams and that it has already been established in all the provincial capitals, “to learn about the specific realities of each community and also to decentralize the work of the criminal justice system in the region,” he said.
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