The Seventh Guarantee Court of Santiago authorized the Public Ministry to access the records of five political parties investigated for the affiliation of militants without consent.
The prosecutor’s request was entered through a two-page document -which was agreed to by the BioBioChile Investigation Unit. In it, the prosecuting agency required the delivery of the original files of the communities.
Only in this cause are six citizens who were prevented from exercising their right to vote or might not register as candidates for a popularly elected position. All of them are listed in political parties for which they did not remember having signed.
The Independent Democratic Union (UDI), the Social Green Regionalist Federation (FRVS), the Democratic Revolution (RD) and the extinct Democratic Independent Regionalist Party and Citizens are the stores whose acts are under the magnifying glass of the Public Ministry.
Fingerprints and signatures
The investigation for violation of the Electoral Law is in charge of the North Central Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office. He left in December 2021, the result of a Servel complaint.
According to information contained in the judicial file, the prosecutor’s office instructed the Criminal Investigation Brigade (Bicrim) of the PDI, who questioned the affected voters.
Additionally, detectives raised handwriting and fingerprint samples of complainants. This, in order to be able to compare them with the original affiliation certificates that Servel stores in its offices at Esmeralda 611, in downtown Santiago.
The comparison, however, might not be carried out in the first instance, since the electoral body excused itself from not being able to give access to the documents, without a court order involved.
“In accordance with the provisions of article 19 No. 15 of our Political Constitution of the Republic, the delivery of the documentation related to the political affiliation of the people is not appropriatewithout the mediation of an order from a court that so provides, “the deputy director of Political Parties of the Servel, Roberto Salim-Hanna, responded to the PDI on that occasion.
Hence, this Monday the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Christofer Belda Carrasco, asked the court for authorization for PDI officials to access and carry out the respective expert reports on the records of the six fraudulently affiliated people.
Consequently, the judge of the Seventh Guarantee Court of Santiago, Mario Cayul, decided to give the prosecution the green light “so that under his strict personal direction of the Investigative Police of Chile, can access the records of the 6 people who were affiliated with political parties without their consent and carry out the expertise indicated in the presentation provided.”
“Complete disposition”
Consulted regarding the situation, the senator and president of the DR, Juan Ignacio Latorre, stressed that these are facts under investigation that “may constitute a crime.”
He added that as a party they abide by “the norms that the law establishes for the affiliation of militants and that even today Servel has a digital platform for affiliation to the different parties“.
Finally, he stated that they have “the party’s complete disposition to clarify any alleged irregularities. We are the first interested in clarifying it.”
Along the same lines, the ruling party condemned “any type of falsification of a public or private instrument or usurpation of a name that is committed to affiliate a person to a political party without their consent.”
“We have been rigorous in meeting the standards that the law establishes for the affiliation of new militants. That is why, in all the affiliation campaigns carried out, we have instructed the militancy that the signatures of the citizens be voluntary and informed”, they added.
At the close, they indicated that they have “delivered all the facilities for those who have requested their disaffiliation: electronically or in person. We have even provided assistance to those who have requested to do so through the Servel platform.”
From the FRVS, meanwhile, they delimited that they do not keep a record of the affected citizen and that she is no longer in their register.
Servel and UDI were not available for this article.
