page_title: Judiciary of Chile
section_title: Supreme Court
hierarchical_section_title: Judiciary of Chile / Supreme Court
caption_attribution_description: Bienes Nacionales destina nuevos inmuebles fiscales para el Poder Judicial
context_page_description: The judiciary of the Republic of Chile includes one Supreme Court, one Constitutional Court, 16 Courts of Appeal, 84 Oral Criminal Tribunals and Guarantee Judges; 7 Military Tribunals; over 300 Local Police Courts; and many other specialized Tribunals and courts in matter of family, labor, customs, taxes, electoral affairs, etc.
  The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected this provision in practice.
  Chile's legal system is civil law based. It is primarily based on the Chilean Civil Code of 1855, derived from Spanish law and other codes of Continental Europe of the 19th century.
  Chilean process provides for a very limited judicial review of legislative acts in the Constitutional Court. It does not accept compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction.
  From the year 2000 onwards, Chile completely overhauled its criminal justice system with the implementation of a new, German-inspired, adversarial system, gradually implemented throughout the country, with the final stage of implementation in the Santiago Metropolitan Region completed on June 16, 2005.
context_section_description: The head of the Chilean Judiciary System is  the Supreme Court of Justice, a body integrated by twenty one members called "Ministers" (Ministros), one of them is elected by its peers as the President for a two-year period. Supreme Court's Ministers are designated by the President of the Republic, who chooses from five candidates proposed by the Supreme Court, with the agreement of the Senate.
  Of the twenty one members of the Supreme Court, sixteen must be judges of Courts of Appeal and five must be lawyers not related to the judiciary system. All members must be lawyers with at least fifteen years of professional exercise, with a distinguished professional or academical career and several other requirements established by the law.
  The Supreme Court of Justice is in charge of the directive, correctional and economical superintendence of all the courts of the country, save the Constitutional Court, the National Board of Elections and the Regional Boards of Elections.
  According to the Organic Code of Courts, the Supreme Court is officially referred to as "Excellence" (Excelencia) and its Ministers as "Your Honor" (Su Señoría), just like all other judges.
  Cases submitted to the knowledge of the Supreme Court can be examined in two ways: in plenary of at least eleven Ministers or in chambers of at least five Ministers. The regular operation of the Court is in four chambers of five Ministers, at least three of them must be judges, while the other two can be lawyers or judges.
  One of the most important functions of the Supreme Court is acting as a Court of Cassation, seeking the standard application of the law to all alike cases, in order to maintain a uniform interpretation of the law throughout the country.
  According to Chilean civil law system, the sentence of one judge only affects the case on which such sentence was dictated, nevertheless, the decisions of the Supreme Court are a strong precedent which is usually replicated by the lower instance courts and judges when deciding about similar cases.
caption: Plenary courtroom of the Supreme Court.
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