The removal of judges for misbehavior in the 1925 Constitution of the Republic of Chile: background and origins

Abstract

This article aims to trace the origins and background of the mechanism for the removal of judges who have not demonstrated good behavior, as established in the fourth paragraph of Article 85 of the 1925 Constitution of the Republic of Chile. For such effects, it analyzes the judicial tenure of the chilean judiciary under the regime of the 1833 Constitution and the Law on the Organization and Powers of the Courts of 1875; the social perception of chilean judges’ conduct before and after the Civil War of 1891; the disrepute of the judiciary at the beginning of the 20th century, the emergence and development of the idea of judicial removability and its legal establishment in 1911, and the debate held during the drafting of the project that became the 1925 Constitution, regarding the judicial tenure and removal of judges. In this way, it becomes evident that the cited rule, although it directly originated in the work of the 1925 Subcommittee on Constitutional Reforms, in a context of widespread discredit of the Chilean judiciary, has antecedents in Law 2,445 of 1911, its origins and practical application. It is thus understood that the incorporation of the judicial removal process into the 1925 Constitution was ultimately a constitutionalization and definitive consecration of a simple and expeditious means to remove bad judges, an aspiration that emerged at least since 1890, initially expressed in an executive bill of 1901, improved by parliamentary work in 1910, and enacted into law in 1911.