The Department of Justice is the State Secretaryship responsible essentially for relating the Executive to the Judiciary and executing the actions that the law and the President of the Republic entrust.

(Organic Law of the Department of Justice, article 1º)

Institutional Mission

To study, develop and supervise policies, plans and programs, coordinating the actions of all the Sector parties, in order to provide the country with a more agile, efficient and reliable justice.

Department roles entrusted by the law

To critically study the constitutional, and civil, penal, commercial and proceeding legislation regulations, in order to propose the President of the Republic the reforms that are considered necessaries:

• To advise the President of the Republic on judges, justice administration employees and other employees of the Judiciary appointments, and on practising the special powers to ensure the judges cabinet behavior;
• To develop sectoral policies, plans and programs, especially in regards to the state interests judicial defense; prison treatment and inmate rehabilitation; family legal organization and identification of people: defence corresponding to the state in managing and developing people goods that fall into bankruptcy, and health care systems applicable to under aged who lack of defence or whose defence is altered, and to the under aged who present behavioral problems or are in conflict with justice;
  
• To control sectoral policies, plans and programs fulfillment and evaluate their results;
  
• To issue regulations and give instructions for dependent services to follow and oversee their fulfillment;
  
• To meet the justice courts organization and functioning needs;
  
• To advise justice courts, in technical matters, through organisms under its responsibility;
  
• To program and propose building acquisition, construction, adaptation and fitting out by Fisco for justice courts, the Department and its dependent services, without damaging the Judicial Services Board powers;
  
• To propose the President of the Republic the necessary measures to solve difficulties and doubts that arise in matters of intelligence and enforcing of laws, according to stipulated in articles 5º of the Civil Code and 102 of the Organic Code of Courts (Código Orgánico de Tribunales);
  
• To oversee free legal assistance provision in accordance with the law;
  
• To propose measures to prevent crime by social defense plans;
  
• To create criminal, and treatment and rehabilitation institutions;
  
• To issue the necessary resolutions for the fulfillment of final sentences that condemned Fisco;
  
• To advise the President of the Republic in matters of amnesty, pardons and parole benefits;
  
• To study the backgrounds and propose, in its case, benefit granting planned in the Decree-Law 409, 1932;
  
• To intervene in corporations and foundations legal status granting and cancellation ruled by the title XXXIII from Book I of the Civil Code, in statutes approval and reforms, in its supervision and the certificate granting on this benefit validity;
  
• To participate in the legalization of the instruments granted or authorized by the Judiciary, the Department, its dependent services and organisms related to the Government through the Department;
  
• To grant important certifications and testimonies requested to the Supreme Government by international organisms or foreign entities in matters that could affect Fisco; and to pass the official text of the Codes and authorize its official editions;
  
• To state an opinion on projects and work implementation of Chilean Gendarmerie, and its priorities which will be submitted to the President of the Republic’s approval. In regards to this works, the Department of Justice will have the same powers that the law indicates to the Department of Public Works for the other works of this nature.

Undersecretaryship of Justice Roles

The roles of this Undersecretaryship are to provide consultancy and direct collaboration for the Secretary in developing plans, programs and decision for the sector under his/her care; he/she is the direct and immediate associate of the Secretary and his/her legal substitute. The Undersecretaryship is composed of Judicial Divisions, Legal Division and Social Defense Division, as well as the Administrative Department. Depend also on this the Ministerial Regional Secretaries –Seremis, by the acronym in Spanish- who represent and implement the tasks of the Department in each Region of the country (**). The Undersecretaryship must convey the sector policies to specific instructions, develop technical and operation regulations, control the regulation fulfillment, as well as coordinate the work of institutions that are a part of the sector. Thus, its roles are especially:

• To run the Department’s internal administration and service.
• To substitute the Secretary in case of absence or obstacles.
• To communicate regulations, plans and programs, to seek for their fulfillment giving the necessary instructions, coordinating or controlling their fulfillment.
• To give specific instructions, to supervise its implementation and to coordinate sector organisms action.
• To directly attend the issues related to the Ministerial Regional Secretaries of Justice, to inspect their actions and seek for government instruction fulfillment on decentralization and regionalization.
• To certify the documents which according to their nature require an authenticity record from the Department.