Chilean Constitutional Court and the limits of criminal law: a brief critical review

From the examination of the recent case-law established by the Chilean Constitutional Court, I will make a brief critical analysis of its adjudication criteria on the review of criminal law. In the first part, I will discuss the standards of the Constitutional Court to evaluate the principle of legality in its aspect of lex stricta (I). In the second part, I will discuss the issue of judicial restraint in the legislative determination of the criminal policy (II). Finally, I will examine whether the Constitutional Court uses a constitutional test when controlling the punitive rule. Since the answer is negative, I will suggest applying a strict standard of review, based on the criteria used in comparative law, given the particularities of the punitive rules (II).