A decade after his dictation, this Monday the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies could finish voting and send to the Senate, the project that annuls the Fisheries Law. Its processing has been marked by a former senator in jail and a company condemned in its legal entity for acts of corruption. It is expected that the UDI, a party questioned for the irregular financing of parliamentarians in the processing of the law, will not vote in favor or intervene in the Chamber.
It was on January 6, 2016, 6 years and 8 months ago, that a group of deputies from the PPD and the Communist Party jointly presented a bill to declare Law 20,657 null and void, known as the Fishing Law, or in its most infamous name, ‘The Longueira Law’.
Another coincidence of time is that on January 7 of this year, almost 6 years after the start of the process, the former UDI senator, Jaime Orpis, He became the first politician sentenced to effective prison for receiving bribes from the fishing industry, having already served 210 days in prison of a sentence of five years and one day.
As for the procedure, almost a year has passed since the united commissions of Constitution and Fisheries of the Corporation, dispatched the report to vote on the initiative in particular.
And for the first time in all that time, this afternoon, there is the possibility that the initiative will reach the Senate and complete its first constitutional process.
Controversial Longueira Law nears its end
For him deputy of the Democratic Revolution, Jorge Brito, who chaired the Fisheries Commission last year when the proposal was dispatched, the slowness of the process must be ended.
In that sense, he stated that every day that passes with the validity of this law, corruption is legalized.
The debate in recent years has focused on what to do with the transition period, between when a law is repealed and a new fishing law is enacted.
When the period for indications was opened, there were those who asked that the law be left without effect only when a replacement was processed.
However, what remained firm is that a period of two years will be given for the Government and Congress to draft and approve a new law.
The silence of the UDI in the Chamber
Affirming this debate and without touching on the corruption case that affected his party, it is expected that the Independent Democratic Union will not support this proposal in the Chamber.
In fact, the 11 interventions registered for the session do not include opposition deputies, with the exception of the Republican, Gonzalo de La Carrera.
The UDI deputy, Sergio Bobadilla, a member of the Fisheries Commission, said that instead of repealing an agreement should be reached to improve the current law.
Officialism asks the Government to speed up a new Fishing Law
For the promoters of the annulment, it is not acceptable that a law that brought convictions for corruption is close to completing 10 years of validity.
Likewise, they point out that it harms artisanal fishermen both in the distribution of extraction quotas, and in the use of renewable permits that, today, are not inheritable.
From the Communist Party, deputy Matías Ramírez called on his own government to speed up the pace for the presentation of a draft, committed for the end of this year or the beginning of next, allowing the annulment of the law to be quickly accompanied by a new initiative.
Likewise, Ramírez listed the central axes of the debate for a new regulation.
From the Christian Democracy they assure that they are also for the annulment of the law.
His bench chief and member of the Fisheries Commission, Erick Aedo, pledged his support and said that this is the way in which Parliament will rediscuss a law that is “impure” and “questioned.”
Aedo said that an update of the regulations is necessary.
The controversial history of corruption that marked the Longueira Law
The nullity project arose from the complaint and subsequent verification that there was bribery or payment of bribes from the industrial fishing industry in the Corpesca Case, to the former UDI deputy, Martha Isasi, and the former union senator himself, Jaime Orpis.
They call it the ‘Longueira Law’, because of the role played by the former UDI presidential candidate, Paul Longueira, as Minister of Economy in the entry of the process, although the former senator, was dismissed in the case.
In fact, the company itself Corpesque, sentenced with criminal liability of the legal person, had to pay 516 million pesos.
In the world of artisanal fishing, it is not explained how, 10 years after the enactment of the law, the rule that gave fishing licenses to a handful of companies is still in force.
However, with the simple majority of the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, it is about to be sent for the first time to the Senate for a second procedure.