The Politics of Judicial Reform in the Democratic Transition: An Analysis of the Chilean Case

Abstract

Abstract. This article examines the difficulties faced by the civilian administrations that replaced the 17-year old military government of General Augusto Pinochet in their efforts to dismantle the authoritarian enclaves established in the 1980 constitution. Its focus is on the analysis of the strategies pursued by these democratic governments in their quest to reform one such enclave: the judicial power, more specifically, the efforts atreplacing some of the members of, as well as taking away some of the political powers of the Supreme Court in order to restore the balance of powers characteristic of a democratic political system.