The position of Comptroller-General Office in the Chilean dictatorship

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the Comptroller-General Office during Pinochet’s dictatorship from the military coup to its entrenchment into the Constitution of 1980. Against the traditional stance that identifies continuity in the relationship between the Comptroller-General Office and the Military Board, this paper argues that three stages can be identified in this period. Initially, this legal institution had a collaborative role in the Board’s outset. Comptroller Humeres and his officials adviced the Military Board and refused to exert a strict legality review of the new regime’s measures. However, progressively the Comptroller-General Office had significant clashes with the military. Indeed, in a second stage, the military regime showed visible hostility to the office, that had its peak in the controversial replacement of Comptroller Humeres in 1978. This second stage is also evidenced by the discussion about the regulation of the Comptroller-General Office in the new 1980 Constitution. Lastly, as a reaction to the government’s hostility, the institution fell back and avoided new clashes with the authoritarian regime. Under a new direction, the office adopted the timid attitude that characterized it in the 1990s.