Article 384. Ruling on the appeal. The court shall rule on the appeal within 20 days of the date on which it has concluded its examination of the appeal. In the judgment, the court must describe the grounds on which its decision is based; rule on the contested issues, unless it upholds the appeal, in which case it may merely rule on the grounds that it would have found sufficient, and declare whether or not the oral trial and final judgment that have been appealed are null, or whether only the said judgment is null, in the cases indicated in the following article. The ruling on the appeal shall be announced in the hearing indicated to this end, with the reading of its operative paragraphs or a brief summary of the judgment.305 Article 385. Nullity of the judgment. The court may invalidate the judgment alone, and deliver the replacement judgment, which must meet the legal requirements, without a new hearing but separately if the grounds for annulment are not related to the trial formalities or to the facts and circumstances that were considered proved, but rather to the fact that the judgment classified as an offense an act that the law does not consider so, applied a punishment when it was not in order to apply any punishment, or imposed a punishment greater than the one required by law. The replacement judgment shall include the factual considerations, the legal grounds, and the decisions of the ruling that was annulled, which do not refer to the issues that were appealed or that were incompatible with the decision taken on the appeal, as established in the judgment appealed.306 Article 386. Nullity of the oral trial and of the judgment. With the exception of the cases mentioned in article 385 if the court upholds the appeal, it shall annul the judgment and the oral trial, determine the situation in which the proceedings are left, and order that the case files be forwarded to the corresponding competent court so that it may order that a new oral trial be held. The fact that the appeal was accepted owing to an error or defect in the judgment shall not be an obstacle to the ordering of a new oral trial. Article 387. Inadmissibility of appeals. The decision on an appeal for annulment shall not be open to any type of appeal, without prejudice to the review of the final judgment sentencing an individual referred to in this Code.307 In addition, the judgment delivered in the new trial held as a result of the ruling that accepted the appeal for annulment shall not be open to any type of appeal. However, if the judgment convicts an individual, while the one annulled would have acquitted him, the appeal for annulment in favor of the accused shall be admissible, in accordance with the general rules. 273. In summary, the appeal regime under the Criminal Procedural Code is as follows: 305 This final subparagraph of article 384 of the Criminal Procedural Code was added by a modification of Law No. 20,074 published on November 14, 2005, that “amends the Criminal Procedural and the Criminal Codes.” Available at: http://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=243832&buscar=20074 306 This second subparagraph of article 384 of the Criminal Procedural Code was added by a modification of Law No. 20,074 published on November 14, 2005, that “amends the Criminal Procedural and the Criminal Codes.” Available at: http://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=243832&buscar=20074 307 This refers to the appeal for review established in articles 473 and ff. (Article 473 is transcribed below, for information only): Article 473. Admissibility of the review. Exceptionally, the Supreme Court may review final judgments that have convicted someone of a crime or simple offense, in order to annul them, in the following cases; whenever: a) As a result of contradictory verdicts, two or more individuals are convicted of the same offense which could only have been committed by one of them; b) Anyone has been convicted as the perpetrator of, or the accomplice or accessory to, the murder of a person who is found to be alive following the verdict; c) Anyone who has been convicted as the result of a judgment based on a document or on testimony of one or more persons, if the said document or testimony has been declared to be false by a final verdict in criminal proceedings; d) Following the guilty verdict, an action occurs or is discovered or a document appears that was unknown during the trial that is sufficient to establish the innocence of the condemned man, and e) The guilty verdict has been pronounced as the result of malfeasance or the bribery of the judge who delivered it or of one or more of the judges who assisted in its delivery, the existence of which has been declared in a final judgment. 96