UDI deputies and the United Democratic Center asked President Gabriel Boric, following acknowledging that there were untidiness when executing 13 presidential pardons, to annul these benefits.
Parliamentarians from various benches asked the president Gabriel Boric that reverses the presidential pardons granted in the last hours of 2022, following acknowledging that there were untidiness in the process.
It was Saturday followingnoon when the president announced that he accepted the resignation of the former Minister of Justice, Marcela Rioswho assumed political responsibility for the various problems that the execution of the benefits had.
The latter was recognized by the president, who pointed out that “There were untidiness in the execution of my decision to grant pardons”.
The beneficiaries are 13 people, 12 of them convicted of crimes that occurred in the social outbreak and another is the former frontista Jorge Mateluna, guilty of robbing a bank.
One of the controversies that arose following the announcement was that there were actually 11 beneficiaries, but due to an error two people were informed that they were not going to be pardoned. Is regarding Luis Castillo and Sebastian Montenegrowho were also included in the final list.
UDI asks to reverse pardons
In this regard, the deputies UDI Juan Antonio Coloma and Juan Manuel Fuenzalida pointed out that the departure of Ríos is not enough, but the pardons must also be reversed.
In a statement they stated that “if President Boric wants to make amends for this true horror that they have committed, he has the obligation to nullify pardons that benefited the ex-frontist Jorge Mateluna and the dangerous criminals he decided to release”.
Along with this, they also referred to the resignation of Boric’s chief of staff, Matías Meza-Lopehandía. In his opinion, his departure is due to the fact that the pardons for Luis Castillo and Sebastián Montenegro “were granted only not to admit that they made a communication error at first, which ends up being even more serious”.
“If the Government claims that with the departure of the former Minister of Justice and the former Chief of Staff they are going to close this controversy, they are absolutely wrong, because We will continue to exercise all legal actions and constitutional until they correct this error”, they added.
Finally, they indicated that they will resort to constitutional Court and to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic if the pardons are still valid.
The United Democratic Center joined
This idea was joined by the deputy (former DC) Miguel Ángel Calisto, spokesman for the new committee United Democratic Center.
“Minister Ríos assumes her political responsibility and resigns from the cabinet, but the problem is not solved, because the president himself, when accepting the resignation, acknowledges that there was carelessness at the minute of issuing the pardons. What the Present must do and what the public expects is that it go back and pardons are not applied to these people who have committed serious crimes, who are delinquents”, he declared.
He added that “seeing the situation in the country, it is not possible for the Government to pardon these types of people who are criminals. Crime is rampant.”
