On victims, social proof, and hand-stitched judicial files in Chile’s inquisitorial criminal justice system (1991-2004)

Abstract

This article handles the issue of the elaboration of judicial proof in the Chilean inquisitorial judicial system where there is no status for victims. We address the issues of access to justice and ordinary punishment in Latin America while both issues are often eclips by study of the transitional justice process. In the Chilean inquisitorial justice system, judges’ formal prerogatives – investigation, prosecution and sometimes even the writing and enunciation of the verdict – were de facto exercised by poorly qualified court clerks who sought a confession at any price. As far as the status of victim is concerned, two features of the Chilean inquisitorial criminal procedure can be emphasized. First, we describe the social configuration of lower criminal courts at the end of the 1990s. Second, the analysis of judicial files allows us to shed light on the “social proof” which crime victims or perpetrators had to overcome.