Legal Instrument

Law creating the National Reparation and Reconciliation Board

Treatment

In 2013, the UN WGEID undertook a country visit to Chile. In its follow up report to the visit, it noted that Chile is perhaps the country that has granted the highest level of financial reparations to victims of enforced disappearance (totalling US $1.5 million) It recognised the importance of the universal system of pensions for all relatives of disappeared persons, which guarantees a minimum equal level for all victims. However, it noted that this universal system does not allow for the assessment of individual damages or of the suffering of the disappeared person or their relatives. Given that the passage of time affects individual situations and generates new and particular needs among relatives of disappeared persons, it called on the State to ensure clear technical guidance is provided for the Compensation and Comprehensive Health-Care and Human Rights Programme. It further noted that several relatives of disappeared persons had reported that the beneficiaries of the Programme faced problems such as a scarcity of medical specialists, particularly in the regions. Finally, it reminded the State that the Declaration distinguishes between civil liability of the State for enforced disappearances (art. 5) and the compensation to which all victims have a right (art. 19) and called on the State to ensure that benefits provided by the Reparation Law and civil reparations through the courts must not be considered mutually exclusive.

In its 2019 review of the State’s compliance with the Convention, the UN CED welcomed the considerable efforts made by the State party to guarantee the right to reparation of victims of enforced disappearances perpetrated during the dictatorship, including the creation of the Compensation and Comprehensive Health-Care Programme. The Committee noted its record that, according to the State party, the establishment of a standing commission for the classification of victims, which would help to determine whether there are any victims of enforced disappearance who were not recognized by the truth commissions, is not an absolute priority. However, it noted with interest that victims of enforced disappearance who were not recognized by the truth commissions but who are recognized as such by the courts have access to the social benefits enjoyed by persons who are on the truth commissions’ lists of victims. The Committee also noted with satisfaction that, since 2011, the Supreme Court has held that civil actions for damages arising from enforced disappearances perpetrated during the dictatorship would not subject to statutory limitations; it also noted, however, that this non-applicability of statutory limitations is not enshrined in domestic law as required by the Convention (art. 24)