The expression L’enfant terrible It has had different meanings since the mid-19th century with the appearance of the caricaturist’s illustrations. Paul Gavarni in the series “Terrible Infants,” which described unbearable children, and the novel by the surrealist Jean Cocteau who, in the first third of the 20th century, targeted difficult infants with irascible behavior. But it was not until well into the last century, when the expression began to take on its current meaning and, depending on the context, it can mean one thing or another.
On the one hand, ‘Lenfant terrible It is used to describe young and successful people, in the field of art or culture, surprising with their new approaches, transgression and disruptive and non-traditional vision. And, on the other hand, the expression is used figuratively to describe an adult person who places others in an uncomfortable position, confuses them, characterized by provocative and eccentric behavior.
The judge of the Seventh Guarantee Court of Santiago, Daniel Urrutia, identifies with the first meaning. The idea of transgression and disruptive vision of justice aligns with his personality, to the point that for years he maintained a WhatsApp status with the name L’enfant terrible. His latest controversy – certainly terrible – when granting penitentiary benefits to inmates of the High Security prison, accused of terrible acts, such as mutilations, kidnappings, dismemberments and death threats to the authority, has placed him next to the less glamorous meaning of the meaning : that of the uncomfortable adult, with a childish attitude, who generates anxiety and causes problems due to his lack of judgment.
At a time when the penetration of organized crime into Chilean society has the police and the Government in a constant state of alert, debating the matter with the country’s main authorities in the National Security Council (Cosena), and surveys reveal the increase in the feeling of insecurity in society, due to the increasing degree of violence of criminal acts, Judge Urrutia decides to act against the current and grant prison benefits, precisely to the most dangerous members of the Aragua Train, who are behind the bars in the High Security prison for his deep criminogenic commitment and an exposure of brutal violence in his actions.
For 20 years Judge Daniel Urrutia has sailed downwind, and although he has been on the verge of shipwreck or running aground on the shore many times, he has managed to overcome bad weather and stay afloat. The starting point in the field of controversy began as soon as he debuted as a Guarantee judge and began a postgraduate study in Human Rights. He sent a copy of his thesis to the Supreme Court ministers. He did not receive congratulations, but rather sanctions for the audacity to summon the highest representatives of justice to assume their responsibility in the denial of justice during the dictatorship. He felt persecuted and denounced the State before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Almost 15 years later, the IACHR ruled in his favor and condemned the State for violating the judge’s right to freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, from time to time, their decisions accumulate criticism, some of which are challenged by the hierarchical superiors of the Guarantee judges: the ministers of the Court of Appeals. From that relationship, deep acrimonies have emerged that – for some – formed, at today’s level, a scab that is difficult to remove and which the judge has managed to remove by exposing the weakness of the criticism against him. He did it that way the first time. To avoid being expelled from the Judiciary for accumulating several sanctions within the same year, he began his academic exile in Mexico where he made his reputation as an enfant terrible grow by denouncing the persecution against him. When he has required help in these years, the international community, linked to human rights, has not skimped on providing him with full support, sending letters and presenting his case in foreign forums, which have placed him next to Baltazar Garzón or the judge, Juan Guzmán Tapia. Something that fills him with pride, but that arouses suspicion among his peers, who appreciate an egocentric attitude more than a real conviction of respecting the rights of those who receive the sanction of the State.
In the two decades that he has been a judge, Daniel Urrutia has faced 12 disciplinary proceedings with varying success, but which, from time to time, increase his media exposure. An example of this was when he decided to change the precautionary measure from preventive detention to house arrest for a dozen people accused of disorder and who were assigned to the so-called “front line.” The Court reversed the measure and the judge counterattacked by filing a complaint against 12 Ministers of Appeals and a Supreme Court judge. There were weeks, within the Judiciary, when nothing else was talked about. The more they attacked him, the more exposure his cause became. Something similar happened during the last Constitutional Convention, where Urrutia issued his opinion on the failures of the justice system and the responsibility of some judges in poor application of the law. Once again he was sanctioned and his fame, certainly on the left, once again grew, adding thousands of new followers to his social networks.
Today’s exhibition seems different. The fate of his controversial decision is in the hands of his Guarantee peers, after the Gendarmerie asked to rescind the benefits to the members of the Aragua Train. It is against the Government, by dismissing as dangerous its arguments to justify the measure, citing the Mandela laws for better socialization of inmates, in circumstances that they are criminals accused of the worst crimes of our legal system; He has the right and left parliamentarians against him, some members of the magistrates’ association – an entity from which he resigned – are also against it, in addition to lawyers, police officers and gendarmes.
The difference with all the previous cases that he has managed to overcome is that today the followers of enfant terrible They are silent, and it remains to be seen if the international community, this time, comes to their rescue.