Socialist Party senators ask member of the Constitutional Tribunal to resign

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SANTIAGO.- “No one can be an accuser and a judge at the same time”.  This was the argument planted by Socialist Party (PS) Senators Jaime Naranjo and Carlos Ominami to request the removal of Raúl Bertelson from the Constitutional Tribunal (TC).  Bertelsen has fallen under question for not having disqualified himself from ruling against the distribution of the “day-after pill” due to the fact that he published a legal report against the pharmaceutical drug in 2004.

The report was written along with Enrique Navarro, also a member of the TC, who rendered himself unable to vote on the Alianza´s request. 

For Naranjo and Ominami, Bertelsen´s decision to take part in the controversial vote “infringes upon the notion of independence and impartiality as core principles stated in the national doctrine”.

“Those who are responsible for forming part of the Constitutional Tribunal, the highest organ for legal matters, should set an example by complying with the rules that regulate due process”, they stated.