Hugo Miranda Ramírez

Hugo Miranda Ramírez was a Chilean lawyer, politician and diplomat, member of the Radical Party. He served as deputy, senator, president of the Chamber of Deputies and later ambassador.

Biography

He was born in Santiago on 1 December 1921, the son of Jorge Miranda Herrera and Flor María Ramírez Jorquera. He studied at the Liceo Gregorio Cordovez of La Serena and later at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, graduating as a lawyer in 1948 with the thesis Los partidos políticos en el Derecho Constitucional chileno.
During his university years he joined the Radical Youth, serving as its president in 1944. In 1946 he became campaign chief for Gabriel González Videla and in 1947 was elected president of the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile.
In 1949 he was first elected deputy for the 4th Departamental Group, being reelected in 1953, 1957 and 1961. From 18 December 1962 to 12 April 1964 he served as President of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile.
In 1965 he was elected senator for Atacama and Coquimbo, being reelected in 1973, although his second mandate was cut short by the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Following the coup, he was detained at the Escuela Militar del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins and later imprisoned as a political prisoner in the Dawson Island concentration camp.
In 1975 he went into exile, first to Venezuela and then to Mexico, where he directed the Casa de Chile. After the return of democracy in 1990, he returned to Chile and was appointed ambassador to Mexico and later to the Dominican Republic.
He was married to Cecilia Bachelet Pizarro, cousin of General Alberto Bachelet, father of President Michelle Bachelet. They had three children: Cecilia, Pilar and Hugo.
In his final years he lived on his farm in Vicuña, and was a member of the board of the Cooperativa Agrícola Pisquera Elqui Limitada. He died there on 1 July 2011.