Chilean Judges Sacked by Their Own Supreme Court for Going Abroad on Sick Leave
CHILE · JUSTICE
Key Facts
- —The count Three removals were agreed on Thursday and eight more on Friday, for a total of eleven.
- —The offence Travelling abroad while signed off work on medical leave, known in Chile as licencias médicas.
- —The rule Article 80 of the constitution requires judges to maintain good behaviour in office.
- —The threshold Each removal needs at least eleven favourable votes of the full Supreme Court.
- —The catch Twenty-six proposed removals failed. Seven fell short of the quorum, fifteen lost a majority and four tied.
- —The gap The names of the eleven have not been published, and outlets disagree on how many cases remain frozen.
No outside body did this. Chile’s Supreme Court used its own constitutional power to remove members of the judiciary it runs, and most of the proposals it considered were rejected.
Eleven Chilean judges were removed from office this week. Their own Supreme Court did it, using a power the constitution gives it over the judiciary it heads.
The offence was not corruption and not a decision in a case. The judges travelled abroad while signed off work on medical leave.
Three removals were agreed on Thursday and eight more on Friday. La Tercera called them the first Chilean judges expelled over the practice.
How the Court Did It
The instrument is article 80 of the Chilean constitution. It says judges hold office while they maintain good behaviour, and it lets the Supreme Court end that tenure.
The procedure is a vote of the full bench, not of a panel. Each removal requires at least eleven favourable votes.
That is a high bar and it showed. Cooperativa reported that 26 proposed removals of Chilean judges were rejected in the same process.
Of those, seven failed to reach the eleven-vote quorum and fifteen were rejected by majority. Four ended in a tie.
So the court refused more removals than it granted. That detail has been largely lost in the coverage of a purge.
How Big the Review Was
Outlets disagree on the scale, and the disagreement is worth carrying rather than resolving. La Tercera counted 58 removal proceedings opened, of which 45 were reviewed in this phase.
The Clinic counted 56 proceedings opened in June, following a review of more than a hundred officials. Neither figure has been corrected by the other outlet.
Cases still suspended by the Constitutional Tribunal are also counted differently. La Tercera says thirteen, Cooperativa eleven, and The Clinic and Mi Radio ten.
The Clinic named five judges whose cases remain suspended. They are Daniel Urrutia, Jorge Saavedra, Erna Fuentes, Eduardo Fritz and Óscar Pacheco.
Who Was Removed Is Not Public
The full list of eleven has not been published by any outlet. That is unusual for a disciplinary action of this scale.
La Tercera named José Delgado, a minister of the Court of Appeals of Arica, as one figure in the process. Mi Radio reported that Gloria Negroni, president of the Court of Appeals of La Serena, was investigated.
It cautioned explicitly that being investigated does not mean she was removed. That caution is worth repeating rather than quietly dropping.
Until the court publishes the list, any named individual beyond those attributions is inference. Chilean outlets have so far declined to make it.
Why Sick Leave Became a Judicial Scandal
Medical leave abuse has been a running Chilean scandal since 2025. Auditors cross-checked leave records against border crossings and found public employees abroad while certified unfit for work.
The practice implicated thousands across the public sector. What makes Chilean judges different is that no employer can dismiss them.
Judges hold tenure precisely so that governments cannot remove them. The only body that can act is the Supreme Court itself, and that is what this week’s votes were.
The institutional cost is visible. A court that spends two days removing its own members is a court publicly conceding that its internal controls failed.
What Happens Next
Those whose cases sit with the Constitutional Tribunal remain in post for now. The tribunal froze them on procedural grounds and has not resolved them.
The removed judges may pursue remedies, and the court has not said whether further tranches are coming. More than a hundred officials were reviewed to produce this many cases.
For Chile the broader question is one of proportion. The same week the court expelled eleven of its own, it also rejected more than twice that number of proposed removals.
Both halves of that are the story. A disciplinary system that removes everyone accused is not working either.
More: Chile news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Chile’s government remove judges?
No. Judges hold tenure under article 80 of the constitution while they maintain good behaviour, and only the Supreme Court can end that tenure.
How many votes does a removal need?
At least eleven favourable votes of the full Supreme Court. That threshold is why most of the proposed removals this week failed.
What did the judges actually do?
They travelled abroad while signed off work on medical leave. Chile has been auditing that practice across the public sector since 2025.
Are the names public?
No. As of this weekend no Chilean outlet had published the full list of the eleven removed judges.
Sources: La Tercera, Cooperativa, The Clinic, Mi Radio La Serena.
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