Lisandro Cruz
Lisandro Cruz Ponce was a Chilean lawyer and politician.
He served as Minister of Labor during the presidency of Juan Antonio Ríos in 1946, and later as Minister of Justice under President Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1972. He also held a seat as a Deputy of the Republic from 1950 to 1953.
Biography
Born in La Calera to Carlos Cruz and Rosa Ponce, he studied at the Liceo of San Felipe and later at the University of Chile, where he graduated as a lawyer in 1936 with the thesis A Study on Modern Civil Law. He worked as an assistant to Professor Arturo Alessandri Rodríguez in civil law and as a local police judge in Puente Alto. He married Cristina Ulloa Chacón, with whom he had four children.Political career
Cruz Ponce joined the Socialist Party in 1934. In 1950, he was elected as a Deputy in a by-election for the 2nd Departmental Constituency, completing the 1949–1953 legislative term. He served on the Foreign Relations, Labor and Social Legislation, and Economy and Commerce commissions.He was appointed Minister of Labor in February 1946, serving until September of the same year in the government of Juan Antonio Ríos. In 1968, he joined the Independent Popular Action. Later, he was appointed Minister of Justice by Salvador Allende, holding the position from November 1970 until January 1972. During his tenure, he signed a decree of pardon together with Allende for members of the MIR and other far-left militants, which triggered a constitutional accusation against him in February 1971. He also served as acting Minister of Education for one week in February 1971, and later as director of the Central Bank of Chile.
After the 1973 coup d'état, he went into exile in Mexico, where he became a professor of law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and later a researcher at its Institute of Legal Research. He died there on 4 August 1997.