Jorge Tapia Valdés

Jorge Antonio Tapia Valdés (1935 – 30 June 2020) was a Chilean lawyer, academic, diplomat and politician. A member of the Radical Party (PR), he held several public positions as minister of state, intendant and ambassador.

Biography Personal and academic life He studied law at the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the University of Chile, where he was a classmate of personalities such as Andrés Zaldívar, Ricardo Lagos and José Rodríguez Elizondo, among others.

He worked for the Senate of the Republic of Chile for 18 years, becoming secretary of the Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice of the Upper House. In 2012 he was named honorary member of the Chilean Society of Parliamentary Law and Legislative Theory.

Political activity Under the government of Salvador Allende, he was Minister of Justice and Minister of Public Education between 1972 and 1973. In the latter portfolio, he promoted the controversial project of the Unified National School, strongly opposed by the Catholic Church and opposition parties.

After the 1973 coup, he was arrested and confined to Dawson Island.

In his final years he resided in Madrid, Spain. Hermenéutica constitucional: la interpretación de la constitución en Sudamérica (Constitutional hermeneutics: interpretation of the constitution in South America), 1973. Sobre la factibilidad y el fracaso de la vía chilena al socialismo, en Chile: lecciones de una experiencia (On the feasibility and failure of the Chilean road to socialism: lessons from an experience), 1977. El terrorismo de Estado: la doctrina de la seguridad nacional en el Cono Sur (State terrorism: the doctrine of national security in the Southern Cone), 1980. Estrategocracia: el gobierno de los generales (Strategocracy: the government of the generals), 1986.

Papers El Congreso Pleno (The Full Congress), Part I, Revista de Derecho Público, 1965, no. 3 El Congreso Pleno (The Full Congress), Part II, Revista de Derecho Público, 1965, no. 4