Rabat is preparing a significant change in the judicial reform: it aims to eliminate the appointment council and introduce a lottery system for selecting Supreme Court justices.

The worst crisis the judiciary has faced since the dictatorship – triggered by the Hermosilla case and what later became known as the Belarusian plot – forced the previous government to introduce a bill to make significant changes to the judicial system. This reform revived an old aspiration – initiated unsuccessfully in 1991 by the former Minister of Justice, Francisco Cumplido – to separate administrative functions from judicial ones. Therefore, when the crisis affecting magistrates of the country's highest courts erupted, the former Minister Luis Cordero and his successor, the former Minister Jaime Gajardo (PC), pushed for a constitutional reform that implies a radical change in the judiciary, as it modifies the judicial governance, removes the courts from the selection of candidate lists for judicial appointments, and eliminates the direct, corrective, and economic oversight of the Supreme Court, which dates back to 1833. This bill, which progressed more rapidly than any other, reaching the second stage in the Senate, includes the creation of a Judicial Appointments Council that would take over this function, currently primarily held by the Executive branch, the Minister Rabat, and the Supreme Court. In fact, the former Minister Hernán Larraín (UDI), one of the driving forces behind removing this power from the Executive, commented that when he was in charge of Justice, he saw the negative effects of appointing thousands of judges. "When I was Minister, I had to appoint more than four thousand judges, and I came to the conclusion that this was the worst possible system," he told this media outlet in 2023. However, the current Minister of Justice, Fernando Rabat, plans to make a significant change in the processing of this bill. Those familiar with his legislative work say that, as he did with the Gendarmerie reform, the lawyer is leading a pre-legislative effort to share with senators the modifications he intends to make. This will be relevant because the deadline for submitting amendments closed during the previous government, so if Rabat wants to modify the core of the bill, he must request a new deadline from the committee to submit amendments from the government. Rabat is determined to do this because he disagrees with the core of this reform, namely, the Judicial Appointments Council. This is what the Minister said in an interview with El Mercurio. "We are not proposing a council because, according to comparative experience, it ends up exposing a political situation that we must avoid," he said. Those familiar with Rabat's analysis say that he is not happy with the fact that the judicial councils of other countries have ended up being politically co-opted, and therefore wants to take precautions so that "the cure is not worse than the disease." In the same interview with El Mercurio, Rabat provided clues about the direction of the amendments that the Executive will present in this constitutional reform. The Minister of Justice commented that the objective is to "incorporate a system that introduces randomness in the appointment of Supreme Court justices." To achieve this, Rabat wants short and limited deadlines for the nomination made by the President when he chooses a name from the list prepared by the Supreme Court. When that name goes to the Senate, there are times when the discussion is delayed for months, senators block its progress, and during that time, information emerges that discredits or complicates the Executive's proposal. Therefore, Rabat intends that by shortening the time, if the Senate has not voted on the name, then chance will come into play: "If this does not happen within the deadlines, which we will have to discuss, the Supreme Court justice will be chosen by a lottery from the list." This is the first time the Executive has opened itself up to a lottery. Previously, it was proposed by the former presidential candidate Johannes Kaiser (Libertarian) and also by some judicial organizations. "By shortening the deadlines and incorporating the idea of the lottery, we will have a faster and more transparent appointment system," Rabat concluded.