Julio Philippi Izquierdo

Julio Philippi Izquierdo (Santiago, Chile, 26 December 1912 – 30 March 1997) was a Chilean lawyer, diplomat, writer, researcher, academic and politician of German descent, associated with conservatism. He served as a minister of State in four different portfolios during the government of President Jorge Alessandri (1958–1964), and later as a member of the Constitutional Court by appointment of General Augusto Pinochet in 1981.

Family He was the son of former minister of finance Julio Philippi Bihl and Sara Izquierdo Phillips.

He married Luz Irarrázaval Larraín, with whom he had eight children.

Education A direct descendant of the German naturalist lineage that settled in Chile (Rodolfo Amando Philippi was his great-grandfather, and the biologist Vicente Izquierdo his grandfather), he studied at the German School of Santiago and later read law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, graduating in 1935. He later became a professor at that institution, teaching social economics (1933–1936), civil law (1939–1952), and philosophy of law (1953–1958).

Formed intellectually during the turbulent 1930s, he maintained a strong independence from student politics, unlike many of his contemporaries who joined emerging political parties. His first exposure to Catholic social teaching came through conversations with Jesuit priest Fernando Vives Solar, a leading figure of the early 20th-century social-Christian movement in Chile. At the time, Philippi Izquierdo was serving as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of Chile.

In 1981, he was appointed by the military government of General Augusto Pinochet as a member of the Constitutional Court of Chile. He voted against the ruling declaring Clodomiro Almeyda "contrary to the institutional order of the Republic" (Decision No. 46 of 1987).

He died in 1997 from pulmonary edema, surrounded by his family.