-31127. The State reiterated that the jurisprudence of the country’s highest court has systematically
recognized the admissibility of civil actions seeking compensation for the harm caused in similar
cases. It argued that this interpretative criterion constitutes a guarantee of non-repetition, both for
the victims and for society as a whole, and that it currently has a robust and consolidated position
which understands that the obligation to make reparation must take precedence.
128. The Court notes that, in its Merits Report, the Commission did not identify or specify the
measures that the State should adopt in order to adapt its legal system and prohibit the application
of the statute of limitations to civil actions for compensation, such as those filed in this case.
However, in its final observations, the Commission considered that the State has not adopted a
comprehensive and lasting solution to comply with the measures of non-repetition recommended,
since the State itself recognized that the case law of the Supreme Court has fluctuated between
declaring the statute of limitations and affirming the imprescriptibility of such actions. Although the
latter is the current trend, this criterion depends on the distribution of claims for reparation by the
Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, so that a different distribution or composition in the future
could mean a change in the criterion. Furthermore, the Commission pointed out that the State
acknowledged that in Chile, judicial decisions, including those of the Second Chamber, have effects
only between the parties (inter partes) and did not explain why the State defense institutions
continue to raise the objection of the statute of limitations in this type of action. Thus, it considered
that the information presented by the State does not prove, in terms of legal certainty, that the
imprescriptibility of these actions is currently a mandatory criterion for the judicial authorities.
Indeed, it has learned of a recent decision by the Court of Appeals of Santiago in which the civil
statute of limitations was applied in a similar matter. Accordingly, the Commission considered it
necessary for the Court to order a legislative reform that expressly establishes the non-applicability
of the statute of limitations in the context of civil actions for crimes against humanity and to call
on the Chilean judicial authorities to carry out a control of conventionality to ensure that, while the
legislative reform is being completed, this principle is not applied.
129. In its final arguments the State rejected the request to amend its domestic legislation,
arguing that this would introduce serious problems into its legal system and also because such an
amendment is clearly unnecessary. It considered that the adoption of a legislative measure seeking
the reopening of civil cases that have been closed with the authority of res judicata would create
serious areas of uncertainty within the Chilean legal system, which is not admissible from the
perspective of the rule of law. It noted that when this Court has ordered the reopening of judicial
cases closed with the authority of res judicata, it has done so as an exceptional and not a common
reparation measure, in cases related to criminal matters in order to effectively punish the
perpetrators of crimes against humanity, which are not subject to the statute of limitations, thereby
depriving fraudulently declared amnesties of their legal effects. However, in this case the situation
is completely different, since what is at issue here is not the personal responsibility of the
participants in these crimes, but rather the financial and abstract responsibility of the State, and
the Commission seeks to invalidate the application of an ordinary statute of limitations, of general
scope, issued without any direct or indirect intention of infringing human rights. In addition, the
State argued that said proposal for reparation is clearly unnecessary, given that the highest Chilean
courts of justice since 2015 have ruled in a sustained and consistent manner on the
imprescriptibility of such civil actions, with the last decision of the Supreme Court in this regard
being issued on March 19, 2018. This, together with the administrative changes made by the same
court, constitutes a real guarantee of non-repetition.
130. In this regard, the Court agrees with the State that “the problem that arose in the instant
case is not due to the absence of regulations, but rather to the lack of an interpretation in
accordance with the international human rights principles governing this matter.” As the State
acknowledged, the wrongful act that generated its international responsibility resulted from the
application by the domestic courts of the statute of limitations, which implied that they did not
analyze the merits of the cases. In other words, as the State emphasized, “the violation of human