President of the Supreme Court (Chile)

The President of the Supreme Court of Chile, officially the President of the Most Excellent Supreme Court of Justice (Spanish: Presidenta de la Excelentísima Corte Suprema de Justicia),^[1] is the member of the Supreme Court of Chile responsible for presiding over it. The president is elected by the court itself from among its members and serves a two-year term, with no possibility of re-election. The duties of the office are defined in Section 2 of Title VI of the Código Orgánico de Tribunales (Organic Code of Courts).^[2]

The president's primary duty is to lead the Supreme Court. In this capacity, the president is responsible for:^[2]

• Exercising, with respect to the Supreme Court, the following powers that the Organic Code of Courts grants to the presidents of the Courts of Appeals:
  • Presiding over the court in all its public sessions;
  • Convening the chambers daily for operation, summoning officials as necessary to constitute them;
  • Opening and closing court sessions, extending or shortening sitting hours when urgent matters require it, and calling extraordinary sessions when necessary;
  • Maintaining order within the courtroom, admonishing anyone who disrupts proceedings and removing them from the chamber if required;
  • Directing the court's deliberations, granting the floor to members who request it;
  • Setting the questions to be debated and the propositions to be put to a vote;
  • Calling a vote on matters under discussion once the court has declared debate closed;
• Drawing up the docket for each chamber in order of priority assigned to cases, and distributing the workload among the court's rapporteurs and other staff;
• Attending to the daily dispatch of business and issuing procedural orders and decrees in matters within the court's jurisdiction or that of any of its chambers;
• Overseeing the maintenance of the general roll of cases admitted to the court and of special rolls for cases classified as urgent or ordinary;
• Directing the compilation of judicial statistics for the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals, based on the bimonthly reports submitted by the latter;
• Taking appropriate measures to ensure that cases before the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals are decided within the statutory time limits, and ensuring that the Courts of Appeals fulfil the same obligation with respect to cases before the judges within their respective territorial jurisdictions;
• Hearing and resolving complaints lodged against subordinate staff of the Supreme Court;
• Designating a member of the court to remain on duty during the judicial recess.

Under Article 53 of the Organic Code of Courts, the President of the Supreme Court also acts as a single-judge court of exception, constituted as such whenever a case assigned by law to this jurisdiction arises. The president has jurisdiction to hear and decide at first instance:^[2]

• Cases concerning the removal of judges of the Courts of Appeals;
• Civil lawsuits brought against one or more members or judicial prosecutors of the Courts of Appeals to enforce their legal liability for acts committed in the exercise of their functions;
• Prize cases and other matters to be adjudicated under international law;
• Any other matters assigned to this jurisdiction by statute.

Appeals against judgments issued by the President of the Supreme Court are heard by one of the court's chambers, except in removal cases, which fall to the Supreme Court sitting in plenary session (excluding the President).

• Supreme Court of Chile