Luis Bates
Luis Sergio Bates Hidalgo was a Chilean lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Justice from 2003 to 2006.
Education
He studied at the Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera and later pursued a degree in law at the University of Chile. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in criminal law from the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain.Career
He practised law and served as an adjunct judge at the Court of Appeals of Santiago. He was a member of the Council for the Defence of the State of Chile for 35 years and served as its president from 1994 to 1996.His career also included work as a lawyer for the Legal Aid Corporation and advisory role within the Chilean Bar Association.
In the academic sphere, he taught at various universities. At the University of Chile Law School, he taught in the area of criminal law. In addition, in 1970, he was one of the directors and creators - along with Benito Mauriz and the late Professor Eduardo Urrejola - of the country's first Legal Practice and Assistance Department, which we now know as the UC Law Clinic.
He was a director of the Centre for Civic Education at the San Sebastián University.
The implementation of the Criminal Procedure Reform stands as the central achievement of his tenure at the Ministry of Justice, which ended in March 2006.