Chile’s Opposition Will Pursue Justice Minister Fernando Rabat’s Impeachment Even if He Resigns

Chile’s opposition will press a constitutional accusation against Justice Minister Fernando Rabat even if he resigns, the Socialist deputy Raúl Leiva said on 1 November, and the constitution allows it for three months after a minister leaves office.

The accusation concerns sentence reductions granted by the Justice Ministry to people convicted of sexual crimes against children. The investigative outlet Interferencia reported on 21 October that 56 such reductions had been approved, 27 for sexual abuse and 29 for rape. The decision of the opposition benches, “unánime, es avanzar en una acusación constitucional,” Mr Leiva told Canal 13’s Mesa Central, El Mostrador reported: unanimous, to advance a constitutional accusation. Pursuing it after a resignation would be worth it, he said, because the violation would otherwise set a bad precedent.

President José Antonio Kast has kept Mr Rabat in post. On 28 October the Chamber of Deputies approved, by 68 votes to 42 with seven abstentions, a resolution asking the president to request the resignations of Mr Rabat and two undersecretaries, Luis Silva and Pablo Mira, El Mostrador reported. The resolution does not oblige him to act, and the government spokesman, Gonzalo Arenas, said the president retained confidence in the minister.

What is a constitutional accusation?

It is Chile’s impeachment procedure, and it runs on two votes. Under Article 52 of the constitution, an accusation is filed by “no less than ten nor more than twenty” members of the Chamber of Deputies. A minister may be accused “for violating the Constitution or the laws or for not having executed them,” among other grounds. For anyone other than the president, the Chamber decides whether the accusation proceeds by a majority of the deputies present, and once it does the minister is suspended from office.

The Senate then sits as a jury under Article 53 and decides only whether the accused is guilty. For a minister, a guilty verdict needs a majority of the senators in office, which the Rio Times puts at 26 of 50. The consequence is set in the same article: the accused “is removed from office, and may not hold any public function, whether or not of popular election, for the term of five years.”

Why would a resignation not end it?

Because the clock in Article 52 runs from the end of the post, not from the conduct. An accusation “may be interposed while the affected party is in office or in the three months following the expiration of his position.” A resignation removes the first half of the penalty, since there is no office left to lose, but not the second. A minister who leaves can still be barred from public office for five years.

Chile has done this before. Andrés Chadwick left the Interior Ministry on 28 October 2019 and was accused as a former minister. On 11 December 2019 the Senate upheld both chapters of the accusation by 23 votes to 18, leaving the former minister “inhabilitado por cinco años para ejercer cargos públicos,” Emol reported: barred from public office for five years. By this publication’s arithmetic, a resignation by Mr Rabat on any given day would leave the opposition until the same date three months later to file, so a departure this week would keep the window open into early February 2027.

No accusation had been filed in the reports this publication read up to 2 November. Mr Leiva said on Canal 13 that the opposition was still waiting for the ministry to hand over the decrees, and in an interview with Cooperativa on 2 November he said: “Esta no es una acusación constitucional contra el gobierno, es hacer efectiva una responsabilidad constitucional.” It is not an accusation against the government, he said, but a way of enforcing a constitutional responsibility.

What does the minister say?

That the law required it. In the 28 October session Mr Rabat argued that the ministry verifies legal requirements while specialised commissions assess each prisoner, and that it followed Supreme Court rulings. “Espero que me expliquen cómo puedo dejar de cumplir una sentencia de la excelentísima Corte Suprema,” he said, according to El Mostrador: he hoped someone would explain how he could fail to comply with a ruling of the Supreme Court. He said Congress had left out a transitional provision when it reformed the rules in 2022.

The dispute is about that reform. Since February 2022, people convicted of certain sexual crimes against minors have been excluded from the reduction, Interferencia reported on 1 November. The ministry’s position, as Interferencia describes it, is that most Supreme Court rulings hold the exclusion does not apply to crimes committed before it took effect. Its regional office in Biobío warned in writing on 24 and 26 June that the exclusion might cover two applicants; the ministry approved both.

Interferencia reviewed 33 decrees from March to September 2026 in which the ministry departed from its regional offices’ view: 11 approvals despite a regional warning and 22 refusals where the regional office saw no legal bar. The table sorts them by signer from Interferencia’s figures; the shares are this publication’s arithmetic.

Mr Rabat signed seven of the 11 contested approvals, or 64 per cent, and 16 of the 33 decrees, just under half. Interferencia itself cautions that the decrees do not by themselves show the reductions were unlawful; that, it says, is for the courts and Congress. Two deputies, Luis Cuello and Juan Santana, filed a criminal complaint against Mr Rabat for prevaricación, a breach of official duty, on 26 October, the outlet reported.

What is the political cost so far?

Measurable. Cadem’s survey published on 1 November put Mr Kast’s approval at 26 per cent, down three points and the lowest it has recorded, and seven points lower than when the Rabat case began. Seventy per cent disagreed with the decision to keep the minister, up six points, and 78 per cent disapproved of his performance.

The opposition has the numbers to file, which takes ten deputies, and has shown the numbers to pass a non-binding resolution. Whether it has a majority of deputies present on the day, and 26 senators after that, is a separate count. The minister can end his own term. The constitution gives the opposition three more months either way.