13 Judicial Rulings Challenge Rabat’s Claims on Sentence Reductions for Child Sex Offenders

Original article: No era llegar y firmar: 13 fallos judiciales contradicen la versión de Rabat sobre rebajas de condenas a agresores sexuales de menores

Justice Minister Fernando Rabat has defended the controversial 56 sentence reductions for sexual crimes against children, granted by José Antonio Kast’s government, asserting that jurisprudence required him to approve these reductions through decrees, provided that technical committees previously decided to grant the benefit to those convicted. However, 13 judicial rulings contradict his narrative.

The criterion presented by the Secretary of State, known as the “Rabat doctrine,” refers to the 2022 legal reform that excluded offenders of certain sexual crimes against minors from accessing these benefits. According to Rabat, this restriction cannot be applied to events prior to its entry into force, due to the constitutional principle prohibiting retroactive application of penal laws to the detriment of the convicted.

Under this premise, the head of the Justice portfolio insists that his role was limited to endorsing administrative actions once the sentencing reduction commissions ruled in favor, assuming that the case evaluation was entirely closed at that prior stage.

«What the Ministry of Justice has done is uphold the constitutional principle established in Article 19, number 3, also based on existing jurisprudence. And this has been expressly reflected in each of the resolutions that have been issued,» are part of the arguments presented by Rabat in his defense.

It Wasn’t Just Signing and Leaving

However, an analysis conducted by CIPER on 15 amparo petitions filed in the Santiago and Valparaíso Courts of Appeals between June and August 2026 revealed a different legal reality. In 13 of the resolutions issued in response to claims from convicted offenders for sexual crimes against minors regarding delays in their case processing, the appellate court judges indicated that the final decision rests solely with the Ministry of Justice, rejecting the notion of a merely automatic role or a simple bureaucratic process of signing and leaving.

According to the investigative outlet, 4 of the rulings “ordered the ministry to ‘issue the ruling it is responsible for’,” an action that needed to be carried out within a timeframe ranging from 24 hours to five days.

In one of the decisions, the appellate court stated that the ministry may “grant or deny the benefit,” while in another ruling, the Fourth Chamber of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals “indicated that it was not their role to ‘substitute the administrative authority in the exercise of the powers’ that the law grants it to sanction the definitive granting of the benefit.”

Rulings Contradict Rabat’s Claims, Acknowledge Ministry of Justice’s Authority

This position of the judges contrasts with the presentation made by Minister Rabat before the Chamber of Deputies on October 29. During that special session, the official justified the shift in his management — which initially rejected the requests — after receiving “the first amparo petition, where the country’s highest court reproached me for illegally depriving a citizen of liberty.”

However, when questioned about the specific details of that mentioned ruling, the Justice portfolio did not provide answers.

In the same parliamentary instance, Rabat argued that denying already ratified benefits by the reduction commissions would infringe on others’ powers and breach articles 6 and 7 of the Constitution, «because it would be asking to act beyond its competence.» Despite this argument, the evidence gathered in the capital and port courts indicates that the judiciary recognizes the Ministry of Justice’s active and binding role in the procedure stipulated by Law No. 19,856.

An emblematic case in Santiago illustrates this point; it concerns a convict sentenced to 10 years for sexual abuse, dissemination of pornographic material, and the rape of a minor aged 14, who demanded immediate release after the Sentence Reduction Commission reduced his sentence by 24 months. According to the inmate, if the Ministry of Justice had approved the reduction on time, he would already be free.

In this regard, CIPER noted that the Third Chamber ruled that although “the delay or omission of a ruling becomes illegal”, this “does not mean that this court may directly grant the sentence reduction benefit or declare, without more, the immediate release of the petitioner, as this corresponds to the procedure set out in Law No. 19,856 and to the competent administrative authority [the Ministry of Justice].

The final responsibility, the judges argued, ultimately depended on the pronouncement that the government portfolio itself had to issue.

According to the ruling, the Ministry of Justice had to “issue the ruling it is responsible for, under the procedure provided for in Law No. 19,856, regarding the petitioner, within a period of forty-eight hours.”

The investigative outlet indicated that there were two exceptions in mid-July, where the First Chamber of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals unanimously decided to release two convicted individuals who had received prior commission approval, ordering their release even though these cases were to be reviewed by the Regional Ministerial Secretariat (Seremi) of Justice of Valparaíso.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of analyzed rulings reveal that the criterion defended by Rabat is not shared by the plurality of the appellate courts, which maintain in their rulings that the Ministry of Justice had the legal power to prevent the release of those convicted of sexual offenses against minors.