Original article: Profesor jubilado gana primer round por deuda histórica: Corte obliga al Mineduc a responder tras más de un año de espera

Retired Teacher Wins Initial Round in Historic Debt Case: Court Orders Education Ministry to Respond After Yearlong Wait

The Santiago Court of Appeals accepted the protection request filed by a retired teacher and ordered the Ministry of Education (Mineduc) to issue a ruling within a maximum of five days regarding the payment request for what is known as the «historic debt.» This request was made by the educator over a year ago, without any response.

According to the Ministry’s website, this debt refers to the salarial injustices suffered by thousands of public school teachers during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, “when the administration of schools was transferred from the state to municipalities, preventing professionals from receiving the salary adjustments outlined in Decree Law No. 3.551 (Article 40), which were disregarded by their new employers.”

The unanimous decision from the Seventh Chamber of the appeals court, which included Judge José Pablo Rodríguez, Minister Elsa Barrientos, and acting attorney Luis Hernández, described the Mineduc’s omission as ‘arbitrary’, which justified its silence by citing an ongoing civil action between the appellant and the Chillán Municipality.

The ruling references key articles from Law No. 21.728, which states in its first article the provision of a one-time payment for education professionals who did not receive the complete allocation stipulated in Decree Law No. 3.551 of 1980, during the process of transferring schools from the Ministry of Education to municipalities or corporations between 1980 and 1987. Article 2 of the same law requires that there not be any ongoing litigation or administrative claims for that allocation or its compensation in any court.

However, to resolve the case, the court ordered the reporter to certify the details of case C-3432-2017, pursued before the Second Court of Letters in Chillán. The certification revealed that the process was initiated by the Chillán Municipality against the teacher for the collection of a commercial patent debt of just $99,035, with the lawsuit filed in August 2017 and never notified to the teacher, remaining archived since June 20, 2018, with no pending documents.

This information was crucial for the Court, which considered that the time elapsed since the teacher’s request—submitted on April 1, 2025—indicated an arbitrary omission by the Mineduc.

“The certified details and the date on which the appellant made their request for the benefits of Law No. 21.728 indicate that the elapsed period constitutes at least an arbitrary omission, which cannot be excused by the lengthy processing time related to the lack of details in a civil procedure, for which the appellant could not provide information due to its confidential status given their lack of notification,” the ruling stated.

The ministers emphasized that the delay in processing cannot be justified by the argument of lacking information on a lawsuit that has, in practice, been inactive for over seven years. The Ministry’s failure to respond, in the Chamber’s view, constitutes a violation of the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law, enshrined in the Fundamental Charter.

As a result, the Court accepted the request without costs and ordered the Mineduc to respond expressly to the payment request submitted by C.E.M.R., the retired teacher who had been waiting for a response for over a year, within a maximum of five business days from when the sentence becomes enforceable.

This ruling not only marks a legal victory for the educator but also sets an important precedent for hundreds of retired teachers facing similar situations, in which the Ministry of Education has delayed resolving requests covered by the historic debt law, using the existence of judicial cases that are effectively idle or without real effect as an excuse.

View the Court of Appeals ruling