Zarko Luksic

Zarko Luksic Sandoval (born 6 May 1956) is a Chilean politician who served as deputy. He also is a political analyst.

Biography He was born in Santiago on 6 May 1956.

He completed his secondary education at Colegio San Ignacio. He later enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, where he obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree. He was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court on 8 October 1984. He subsequently earned a PhD in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, with the dissertation "El Estado Autonómico Español y la delimitación de competencias normativas entre el Estado y las Comunidades Autónomas" (1990).

He has served as professor of Constitutional Law at Diego Portales University and as visiting professor at the University of Magallanes. He has also taught labor law at the University of Magallanes and at the University of Chile. He is currently a lecturer at the University of the Andes and a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, teaching collective bargaining and labor strategies.

He has published articles on administrative decentralization, democracy, constitutional justice, and labor law in specialized journals. As of October 2024, he is a partner at the Santiago-based law firm Mendoza Luksic Valencia.

Political career Between 1982 and 1986 he served as executive secretary of the Constitutional Studies Group. In 1987 he was appointed vice-president of the youth wing of the Christian Democratic Party (DC), and in 1989 he participated in drafting the Concertación program for the government of Patricio Aylwin.

During Aylwin’s administration, he worked as legal advisor and chief of staff to the Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, Edgardo Boeninger, taking part in the drafting of major legislation, including laws on municipalities and regional governments.

In 1993 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of Chile for District No. 16 (Colina, Lampa, Tiltil, Quilicura, and Pudahuel), serving three consecutive terms from 1994 to 2006. In 2005 he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in the 19th Senatorial Constituency (Magallanes Region).

On 11 March 2006, President Michelle Bachelet appointed him Undersecretary of Labor, a position he held until January 2008. He later served in roles related to labor justice reform and as presidential representative to the board of the University of Magallanes.

In May 2018 he resigned from the DC. Since September 2022 he has been a member of Amarillos por Chile, representing the movement in negotiations during the 2023 constitutional process.