Lawmakers have filed a motion with the Constitutional Court, denouncing that the procedure was flawed and the Supreme Court was not previously consulted on its implications.
According to Article 60 of Magna Carta, if the TPP-11 contains a provision affecting the organization and powers of the courts, the Supreme Court’s opinion must first be heard.
The treaty was approved in the Senate on October 11 by 27 votes in favour, 10 against and one abstention, despite opposition from some 200 of the country’s social and trade union organizations.
This agreement is controversial and widely seen as damaging to the country’s sovereignty because it gives international courts jurisdiction to settle disputes.
Essentially, this means that a transnational corporation can sue a state if it believes its interests are being harmed.
“The TPP-11 maintains “terms that bind us”. “I have the feeling that it hurts Chile,” criticized Senator Karim Bianchi.
He recalled that when, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the withdrawal of 10 percent of the money accumulated by the Pension Fund Administrators (AFP) was encouraged, they went to the US government to appeal against a Chilean law and could not do this.
However, if TPP-11 is signed, the AFPs, the vast majority of which are transnational, “could see their expectations of future profitability violated” and consequently sue the Chilean state.
Although the treaty has already been approved by both houses of parliament, President Gabriel Boric announced that he would not promulgate it before signing the so-called “side letters” with member countries willing not to apply the dispute settlement clause.
With a market of nearly 500 million people, the treaty includes 11 countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
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