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Articles received by April 30 can be published in the first semester, and those received by September 15 can be published in the corresponding second-semester issue.

The legislator as addressee of the 'lex mitior' principle

Authors

  • Antonio Bascuñán Rodríguez Universidad Adolfo Ibañez
No. 36 (2022): Primer Semestre
https://doi.org/10.5354/0718-4735.2022.66787

Abstract

The article reviews two judgments of the Chilean Constitutional Court concerning the constitutional status under Chilean law of the lex mitior-principle, that is, the duty to apply retrospectively the milder criminal law. It offers a critical analysis of the thesis shared by the dissenting opinion and the concurrent opinions in both sentences, which is not contested by the late majority opinion of the Court. The article poses that at constitutional level as well as under international law of human rights the lex mitior-principle is most properly understood as a prohibition addressed to the legislator so that he cannot order a categorical application of the repealed statute for the sole reason that it was the statute in force that at the time of the commission of the offence. It is a special case of the general prohibition to establish arbitrary differences.

Keywords:

time and law, lex mitior principle (retrospective application of the milder law), legality, proportionality, right to equal treatment under the law, saving provision, reform of Chilean bankruptcy law, Act 20.720

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How to Cite
Bascuñán Rodríguez, A. (2022). The legislator as addressee of the ’lex mitior’ principle. Revista De Estudios De La Justicia, (36), 1–52. https://doi.org/10.5354/0718-4735.2022.66787 (Original work published June 30, 2022)
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Revista de Estudios de la Justicia
Facultad de Derecho
Universidad de Chile
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