Chilean deputies have approved a bill called Naín-Retamal, named after the last names of two policemen murdered in 2020 and 2022, which will allow the police to be given tools against criminals.
They have done so at a time when the Chilean public agenda has been intensely marked by security.
The congressmen push a strong legislative agenda against the clock, after last Sunday a 43-year-old police officer was murdered by criminals in the city of Quilpué, in the Valparaíso region, about 100 kilometers from Santiago de Chile.
It was an event that had an impact on society and stirred up the political class.
While President Gabriel Boric, through different gestures, strives to make it clear that his government supports the Carabineros, the parliamentarians decided not to go out on the ground this week,
The bill had been approved in December by the Chamber of Deputies in its general discussion and today it was approved in its particular review, article by article, until completing the 24. The initiative, which will go to the Senate, establishes the privileged legitimate defense – the presumption of justified use of his service weapon – in actions related to the exercise of police duties.
Additionally, it increases the penalties for attacks against the Carabineros, the Investigative Police, PDI, and the Gendarmerie.
Officials will be "exempt from criminal liability" if they must "repel attacks that risk their integrity or that of third parties, as well as when they prevent the consummation of serious crimes," the text says.
There were sectors of the pro-government left that did not support the initiative, precisely because of the article that makes it easier for police officers to use their service weapon when acting in self-defense, in defense of third parties, or to prevent a crime.
The bulk of the Chamber of Deputies, however, approved the Naín-Retamal project by the majority of the deputies present.
"What a tremendous paradox that of Chile," wrote Flavia Torrealba, president of a government party, the Social Green Regionalist Federation.
“The political sectors that should be fighting to expand civil liberties (not only economic, by the way) are trying to install a police state.
Apparently there is a deep ideological reflection to do ”, she assured in an open criticism of the ruling party to which she belongs.
The Government did not sponsor or give urgency to this initiative and will propose certain changes with a view to its discussion in the Senate, as announced by the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá.
The Secretary of State, who made a call for approval, explained the current problem in a case of the use of force by the Carabineros: "While it is being investigated, the policeman immediately falls into this condition of defendant, often removed from the institution , and the prosecutors interpret that if this official used his weapon, and there is an injury or death, from that moment he is charged, ”said the minister to ADN radio.
In the stands of the chamber were the widows and relatives of Sergeant Carlos Retamal and Corporals Eugenio Naín and Juan Florido, assassinated in 2022. It was a heated parliamentary debate, with recriminations between one political sector or another.
Control of crime has become the priority of Chileans, according to different surveys, and the Boric government has endorsed this demand.
It has done so especially after the constitutional plebiscite last September that revealed the change in interests of public opinion.
The president in recent days has carried out unprecedented gestures regarding his commitment to public order and even announced that he would join the police procedures.
"It is necessary to reflect on our actions in the past," he said on Tuesday, referring to the positions that have characterized the generation of the new Chilean left in matters of public order.
For Senator José Miguel Insulza, a socialist, this generation has come to understand "that security is not a class issue."
The Senate this Thursday will try to dispatch six legal initiatives that have been approved this week by the deputies.
Together with the Naín-Retamal law, Congress will seek to carry out laws against hit men, extortion, carrying weapons in crowded places and others that reinforce the powers of the Gendarmerie and that expand police powers in immigration control.
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