Kast's Eight Constitutional Amendments Draw Human Rights Watch Call for Rejection

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday called on Chile's Congress to reject a package of eight constitutional amendments submitted by President José Antonio Kast, warning that the proposed changes would weaken protections for civil liberties and concentrate authority in the executive in ways inconsistent with international human rights law.

The amendments were formally sent to the Senate on August 18, 2026, according to Human Rights Watch, with the stated objective of strengthening Chile's response to organized crime. The organization argues that the text, as drafted, goes well beyond that goal.

The most consequential provision creates a fifth category of state of emergency, a "public security" emergency, on top of the four already recognized in the Chilean Constitution. Under the proposal, the president could declare such an emergency in response to anything deemed an imminent threat to public security, and the declaration could last up to 240 days without congressional approval. In areas placed under this regime, the president would have the power to suspend or restrict personal freedom and mobility, the right of assembly, and the right of association, and to authorize interception of communications, searches of documents, and seizure of property. A general officer from the armed forces or the national police, appointed directly by the president, would run the affected zone.

The package also gives the president new authority to designate groups as terrorist or criminal organizations, without specifying in the text what legal consequences flow from such a designation. A separate provision establishes "differentiated prison regimes" that would limit visits and benefits for certain categories of detainees.

Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch's Americas director, framed the package as a structural rather than a technical problem. "The proposed constitutional amendments threaten the rights of Chileans and endanger their institutions," she said. "This is a dangerous power grab that puts the rights of all Chileans at risk."

The organization grounds its objection in two international instruments to which Chile is a party. Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights permits governments to suspend certain obligations only "in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation," and only to the extent "strictly required by the exigencies of the situation." Article 27 of the American Convention on Human Rights uses similar language, allowing derogation in cases of "war, public danger, or other emergency that threatens the independence or security of a State," again limited to what the emergency strictly requires. Human Rights Watch's position is that the breadth of the powers Kast is seeking, including the absence of clear limits on duration, scope, and judicial oversight, does not satisfy these tests.

Goebertus also pointed to the absence of guardrails inside the text itself. The emergency powers would not require legislative authorization within a fixed window, and the bill's silence on the legal effects of a terrorist or criminal designation leaves courts and the executive without a defined standard to apply. In Goebertus's reading, those omissions mean the proposal does not merely expand executive reach but reshapes the relationship between the executive and the rest of the state.

The Chilean government's framing of the package, centered on organized crime and public order, is not in dispute; the disagreement is over whether the proposed tools are proportionate to that objective and whether the constitutional text contains the constraints international law requires. Human Rights Watch has not alleged that the government intends to abuse the powers, but it argues that the lack of built-in limits is itself the problem, since future administrations, not only the current one, would operate under the same rules.

The call for rejection is addressed to Congress, where the amendments now sit. The Senate has not, as of Human Rights Watch's statement, scheduled a vote. Whether the proposal advances, is narrowed in committee, or is set aside will test how the Chilean legislature weighs the government's crime-fighting argument against the civil liberties concerns raised by international monitors and, potentially, by domestic institutions that have not yet publicly responded.