Judicial Setback for Max Lobos Against El Ciudadano: Court Upholds Inadmissibility of Complaint Against Its Director

Original article: Revés judicial para Max Lobos frente a El Ciudadano: queda firme inadmisibilidad de querella contra su director

Maximiliano Lobos Lacoste has faced a judicial setback against El Ciudadano, as the inadmissibility of his complaint against its director, lawyer Javier Pineda Olcay, has been upheld.

The Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago ruled the complaint for serious defamation lodged by Lobos (commonly known on social media as Maxi Patriotra) against Pineda Olcay to be inadmissible. Subsequently, the Santiago Court of Appeals deemed the appeal against the ruling abandoned due to Lobos’s failure to appear or announce his intention to argue the case.

The far-right activist filed a criminal complaint for serious written defamation with publicity, invoking Articles 416 and following of the Penal Code and Article 29 of Press Law No. 19,733. He accused the director of El Ciudadano of publishing on March 18, 2026 that a court had “disqualified him from practicing law for one year”.

In his legal action, he argued that “both claims in the article are objectively false” and sought the maximum penalty provided by the Penal Code for this offense against honor: medium-term imprisonment of up to 1,095 days, a maximum fine of 150 tax units, and his legal costs to be borne by the opposing party.

However, on June 24, 2026, the Seventh Criminal Court deemed the criminal complaint for serious written defamation inadmissible, concluding that “the arguments presented do not undermine the grounds considered when issuing the contested ruling; thus, there is no basis for reinstatement”.

Max Lobos appealed this decision and on June 30, 2026, the court granted the appeal “only with devolutive effect” and forwarded the case details to the Santiago Court of Appeals.

At the second instance, a request for argument was announced, and the lawyer member of the court Manuel Domingo Antonio Luna Abarza was recused without cause; the court acknowledged the recusal, leaving the case “without a tribunal”.

Later, the hearing was rescheduled for September 21, 2026, when the court clerk certified that “no lawyer for the appellant appeared to argue the present case, nor did they register in writing or in person before this clerk in the morning”, mentioning he made “three calls verbally… without any lawyer appearing before the court”.

In light of this situation, the Sixth Chamber of the Court resolved: “given that the appellant’s lawyer did not appear before the court or register to argue, and in accordance with the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 358 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the appeal has been declared abandoned against the ruling of June 24, 2026”.