Chile Passes Anti-Discrimination Law That Had Been Pending For 7 Years

The Santiago Times and I Love Chile News both report on final passage by Chile's Senate on Wednesday of an anti-discrimination law that had been pending in Parliament for 7 years. The Senate's 25-3 vote in favor of the bill follows the killing in March of 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio in a neo-Nazi hate crime attack. The new law, which still needs to be approved by the Constitutional Tribunal as constitutional, punishes discrimination by fines of up to 1.8 million CLP ($3700 US). A fine of up to 733,000 CLP ($1500 US) will be imposed an a complainant if no discrimination is found. The new law defines discrimination as:

any distinction, exclusion or restriction, without reasonable justification, made by state officials or private individuals and causing deprivation, disruption or threat to the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic or in international human rights treaties ratified by Chile.

It includes differential treatment based on a broad range of characteristics: race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, ideology, political opinion, religious beliefs, participation in organizations or lack thereof, sex, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, health and disabilities. In the past, opponents of the law, including Protestant churches and the Catholic Church, had been concerned that it could be used to legalize same-sex marriage.  To deal with those concerns, the final version provides in Art. 18: "The precepts of this law cannot be interpreted as derogatory clauses or modifications of other legal norms."