The Senado (Chile's upper house of Congress) on Tuesday approved the appointment of Marisol Andrea Rojas Moya as a justice of the Corte Suprema (Chile's Supreme Court). The vote ended with 35 in favor, 5 against and 3 abstentions. President José Antonio Kast had put forward her name.
According to BioBioChile, Rojas will replace former justice María Teresa Letelier. Letelier left the post on reaching the maximum age for remaining in the Poder Judicial (the judiciary). With this appointment, Rojas becomes the ninth woman to sit on the full bench of the Corte Suprema.
According to Emol, the votes against came from Diego Ibáñez (Frente Amplio), Daniel Núñez (Partido Comunista), Claudia Pascual (Partido Comunista), Yasna Provoste (Democracia Cristiana) and Beatriz Sánchez (Frente Amplio). Francisco Huenchumilla (DC), Ximena Órdenes (PPD-aligned independent) and Alejandra Sepúlveda (Federación Regionalista Verde Social) abstained.
The opposition to her came mainly from opposition parties. However, the number fell well short of putting the nomination at risk. Earlier, the Senado's Comisión de Constitución (Constitution Committee) had approved the favorable report by a majority. At that stage, senators Paulina Vodanovic and Claudia Pascual abstained.
The Executive nominated Rojas in September. The judge was part of the quina, the list of five candidates drawn up by the Corte Suprema itself to fill the vacancy.
Rojas is 63 years old, comes from Estación Central (a comuna, or municipality, in the Santiago area) and studied law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. La Tercera reports that she was the first professional in her family. She joined the Poder Judicial in 1987, at the 30th Civil Court of Santiago.
She later served as a court reporter (relatora) at the Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago and as a judge of the capital's 28th Civil Court. Sources differ on her time as a reporter at the Supreme Court. BioBioChile places her arrival in 2007, while Emol says she was a substitute reporter between 2004 and 2005.
In September 2012 she became a justice of the Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago. In March 2026 she took over as president of that court, which oversees 60 courts in the Región Metropolitana (the Santiago metropolitan region). She must now leave that post.
Her career includes high-profile cases. In April she sat on the panel that rejected a habeas corpus petition filed by the defense of Galvarino Apablaza, a former member of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez. In 2023 she took part in the decision that upheld a querella de capítulos (a preliminary proceeding against a judge) against then-justice Juan Antonio Poblete, who was under investigation over phone interceptions.
The ministro de Justicia (Justice Minister), Fernando Rabat, defended the nomination before the chamber with an emphasis on integrity. "The Poder Judicial is living and has lived through crucial days," he said, referring to conduct by some judges that was at odds with ethics.
Rabat stressed that Rojas is not connected to the integrity cases that have hit the institution. "We must restore the institutional standing of the Poder Judicial," he said. He also noted that the Santiago court received 85,300 cases in 2025 and close to 50 thousand so far in 2026.
The minister added that Rojas had taken part in 16 judicial training programs at the Academia Judicial. According to Emol, Rabat said that in her selection from the quina "elements of merit have prevailed."
Rojas is the second appointment to the Corte Suprema under the Kast government. According to BioBioChile, there are still vacancies to fill on the full bench of the highest court.
