According to BioBioChile, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has launched a plan to revive the stalled reform of the Civil Procedure Code. The bill reached Congress in 2012 and has made no progress in the Senate’s Constitution Committee since 2021.
To move it forward, the ministry formed two bodies: a consultative committee and an advisory commission. Both will review the original text and draft new amendments, meaning proposed changes to its articles.
The initiative has already passed its first legislative stage in the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate has also approved it in principle. What remains is detailed debate, article by article, which is where it stalled.
Justice Minister Fernando Rabat said the goal is for courts to respond more quickly to citizens’ needs. To that end, the government will bring academics from public and private universities in different regions into the debate.
Rabat set a deadline. The executive branch expects to submit the amendments to Congress between January and April 2027. "We would like to be able to make that submission between January and April 2027," the minister said.
Pilar Hasbún, head of the ministry’s Legal Division, will coordinate the work.
The Constitution Committee agrees on the need to change the civil procedure system. However, its members warn that implementation will involve high costs. They also insist on addressing the main bottleneck in civil justice: the backlog of debt collection lawsuits.
The committee’s chair, Senator Pedro Araya of Antofagasta, asked the executive branch to prioritize shorter timelines and a lighter workload for the courts. "The composition of the courts can allow for faster processing of civil cases and enable us to address what is currently clogging the civil justice system, which is debt collection," he said.
For ordinary citizens, the impact is direct. A civil lawsuit can concern anything from an unpaid debt to a rental dispute or a breach of contract. Today, these cases compete for time with thousands of debt collection cases.
Araya added that the proposal should build on the progress already made in both chambers to produce a consensus text. He expects the committee to advance the bill quickly once the amendments arrive, so it does not stall again.
The source does not specify the estimated cost of the reform or who will serve on the new bodies. The bill has spent 14 years in Congress, five of them without progress. The next milestone is the submission of amendments in the first four months of 2027.