The legal system of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

belongs to the

Continental Law Civil law is a legal system originating in mainland Europe and adopted in much of the world. The civil law system is intellectualized within the framework of Roman law, and with core principles codified into a referable system, which serves as t ...

tradition. The basis for its public law is the 1980

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

, reformed in 1989 and 2005. According to it Chile is a ''democratic republic''. There is a clear separation of functions, between the President of the Republic, the Congress, the judiciary and a Constitutional Court. See

Politics of Chile Chile's government is a representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and by their cabinet. Leg ...

. On the other hand, private relationships are governed, mainly, by the

Chilean Civil Code The Civil Code of the Republic of Chile (''Código Civil de la República de Chile'', also referred to as the ''Code of Bello'') is the work of jurist and legislator Andrés Bello. After several years of individual work (though officially present ...

, most of which has not been amended in 150 years. There are also several laws outside the Code that deal with most of the business law.

Public law

Constitution

The current Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile, approved by Chilean voters in a tightly controlled

plebiscite A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of ...

on September 11, 1980, under

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

, and made effective on March 11, 1981, has been amended in 1989, 1991, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005. In 2005 over 50 reforms were approved, which eliminated some of the remaining undemocratic areas of the text, such as the existence of non-elected Senators (appointed senators, or senators for life) and the inability of the President to remove the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. These reforms led the President to controversially declare Chile's transition to democracy as complete. There is a

constitutional court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

(''Tribunal Constitucional'') with the competence to declare a singular law "not applicable" to an individual case (''inaplicabilidad por inconstitucionalidad'') and, having declared that at least once, the unconstitutionality of that law in general.

Administrative law

The President of the Republic must fulfill the administrative function, in collaboration with several ministries or other authorities with ''ministerial rank''. Each Ministry has one or more sub secretaries. The actual ''satisfaction of public needs'' is performed through

public services A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...

, dependant or at least related to one of those sub secretaries. All Ministries and public services have a body of workers or administrative personnel (''funcionarios públicos'').

Public property Public property is property that is dedicated to public use. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership (owned collectively by the population of a state). This is in ...

is subject to privileges and burdens, because it serves public purposes. The sea, rivers and lakes, mines and natural reservations belong to the state and may be used by "anyone", but when individual exploitation is possible then it is in the hands of privates. On the other hand, buildings, cars and other supplies that are necessary for the work of public agencies are also property of the state. Public entities act through administrative procedures, that is, processes with formal stages where opportunities to deliver evidence and exercise appeals are granted to the citizens. The recent basic law of administrative procedures deals with most of the general matters pertaining the administrative procedures of all public entities. There is not a singular

administrative court An administrative court is a type of court specializing in administrative law, particularly disputes concerning the exercise of public power. Their role is to ascertain that official acts are consistent with the law. Such courts are considered s ...

to deal with actions against the administrative entities, but several specialized courts and procedures of review. However, civil courts have jurisdiction over all matters that are not in the scope of other tribunal, such as

public liability Public liability is part of the law of tort which focuses on civil wrongs. An applicant (the injured party) usually sues the respondent (the owner or occupier) under common law based on negligence and/or damages. Claims are usually successful when ...

and the overturn of single administrative acts.

Regulation

Since the privatization of most economic activities in the 1980s, the President and the independent agencies became the main policy makers regarding the

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

of the economy, subordinated to

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to ...

. The exploitation of mines and

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

resources is given in concession to private entrepreneurs. All activities that can have a significant impact on the environment must obtain an administrative

authorization Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More fo ...

and are subject to heavy regulation by several different agencies. There are agencies (''Superintendencias'') dealing with: * Electricity and Fuels (''Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles, SEC''), * Water Supply and Treatment (''Superintendencia de Servicios Sanitarios, SISS''), * Banking and Finance, Stock Exchange and Insurances (''Comisión para el Mercado Financiero, CMF'') :CMF was created by merging of former agencies: ''Superintendencia de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras, SBIF'' and ''Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros, SVS''. * Casinos (''Superintendencia de Casinos de Juegos, SCJ'') * Bankruptcy (''Superintendencia de Insolvencia y Reemprendimiento, SIR''), * Environmental Protection (''Superintendencia de Medio Ambiente, SMA''), * Pensions and Retirement Funds (''Superintendencia de Pensiones, SP''), * Social Security (''Superintendencia de Seguridad Social, SUSESO''), * Health (''Superintendencia de Salud''), * Education (''Superintendenica de Educación''), etc.

Private law

Civil Code

The Civil Code of the Republic of Chile is the work of the Chilean-Venezuelan jurist and legislator

Andrés Bello Andrés de Jesús María y José Bello López (; November 29, 1781 – October 15, 1865) was a Venezuelan- Chilean humanist, diplomat, poet, legislator, philosopher, educator and philologist, whose political and literary works constitute an ...

. After several years of individual work (though officially presented as the work of multiple Congress commissions), Congress passed the Civil Code into law on 14 December 1855, and came into force on 1 January 1857. The Code has kept in force since then though it has been the object of numerous alterations. The main modernisations the code has undergone have affected

family law Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations. Overview Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include: * Marriage ...

and the law of successions. On one hand, these reforms have introduced more equal relations between men and women and, on the other, they have eliminated discriminations between children born from married couples and those born extramaritally. Being part of the civil law tradition, there is no obedience to

precedent A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...

in Chilean law. Nevertheless,

sentences ''The Four Books of Sentences'' (''Libri Quattuor Sententiarum'') is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the 12th century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the '' sententiae'' ...

of a higher court can be appealed to the Supreme Court based in the ''erroneous application of the law'', thus being able to deliver uniform decisions in controversial matters of law.'' See Judiciary of Chile''.

Commerce

Though the Commerce Code of 1868 was the main source of business law, nowadays the legislation is widely spread in many legislative bodies. For instance, both the Civil Code and the Commerce Code deal with the basic matters of enterprises, but corporations and

limited liability Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a corporation, company or partnership. If a company that provides limited liability to it ...

enterprises have a statute of its own. Recently the law of bankruptcy has been incorporated in the Commerce Code, in a process of re- codification. Matters such as

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

and the stock exchange are strongly regulated by

government agencies A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administratio ...

and therefore are subject to public scrutiny. Recently, these agencies have fined important executives for insider trading.

Family

Originally, Family law in Chile was created according to the conservative spirit of the society of 19th century. Their principles was: high protection of matrimonial family (and discrimination ni non-matrimonial filiation), authority of husband over wife, and a great parental power over the children. Also, in the beginnings the Catholic Church has the control in many familiar actions, but with the Laicist Acts ('' Leyes Laicas'') were transferred their powers to state agencies, like the Civil Registration, and created the Civil Marriage in 1884. However, there were several reforms across the 20th century, for the purpose of ending legal discrimination and make family relationships more equal, in addition to protecting the most vulnerable members. Therefore, in 1967 is created the Childs Act (''Ley de Menores''), in 1993 the Domestic Violence Act (''Ley de Violencia Intrafamiliar'') and in 2004 a new Civil Marriage Law ( ''Ley de Matrimonio Civil'') that introduces divorce. Likewise, Civil Code was reformated many times for doing better conditions for married women, and in 1989 the husband authority was repealed; on the other hand, in 1998 it introduces a new filiative system that gives equal rights to children born inside or outside a marriage. In recent years, new reforms allows to same-sex couples obtain many rights. Thus, in 2014 is created the Civil Union Agreement ( ''Acuerdo de Unión Civil''), and in 2021 is established the

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

. Since 2005, a separate familiar procedure is established by the Family Courts ( ''Juzgados de Familia'') with a verbal trial.

Criminal law

Since the year 2000, Chilean criminal procedure is experiencing one of the most important legal reforms of the country's history, completely replacing an inquisitory procedure by an accusatory system, very similar to that of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

or the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. While the prosecution is in charge of an autonomous authority (''Ministerio Público''), the actual judgement is made by a collegiate court (''Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal'').

Trials In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...

are public and verbal. However, the law grants several alternatives to the defendant so as to avoid the trial, but, at the same time, grant the victim's satisfaction and the public safety. The Chilean

Criminal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

, which defines the conducts that constitute an offense and the applicable conviction, dates back to 1874. It was greatly inspired by the Spanish Code of 1848 and the Belgian Code of 1867. The Code has been widely criticized, and the Ministry of Justice is studying a complete replacement by the year 2010.ANTEPROYECTO DE NUEVO CÓDIGO PENAL
(in Spanish)

Notes

References

Brief review of Chile's constitutional history
– Chile's Library of Congress (in Spanish) *Vergara Blanco, Alejandro, "Panorama General del Derecho Administrativo Chileno", in Santiago González-Varas (dir.) ''El Derecho Administrativo Iberoamericano", pp. 137 ss. *Tapia Rodríguez, Mauricio, "Código Civil 1855–2005. Evolución y Perspectivas", Ed. Jurídica de Chile, 2005, p. 45. *Somarriva Undurraga, Manuel, "Evolución del Código Civil chileno", Ed. Nascimento, 1955. *Edwin Montefiore Borchard. Guide to the law and legal literature of Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Law Library of Congress. Government Printing Office. Washington. 1917
Internet Archive
*Helen Lord Clagett. A guide to the law and legal literature of Chile, 1917–1946. Library of Congress. Washington. 1947
HathiTrust
*Daniela Horvitz
Family law in Chile: overview
Thomson-Reuters Practical Law. 2020. {{Authority control Law of Chile Law in South America