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The Lesson of a Ruling

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By Carlos Peña

In these times when there is distrust in the Judiciary, there are events that rekindle confidence in it.

One of them is the first-instance ruling (which, of course, may be modified, but that does not diminish its symbolic importance) ordering the State to compensate the owners of the former Fuente Alemana. As a reminder, this establishment was vandalized repeatedly in October '19 and the following months, with such regularity that it seemed like a routine procedure.

And the first-instance court has just held the State responsible.

But—it will be said—weren't those who protested weekly responsible, those whose conduct forced this business and others nearby to defend themselves with force or to close? That is true. But one can be responsible by action (this is the case of those who stoned, set fires, spat, and defaced) or by omission. The latter occurs when one fails to do what should have been done, when the fulfillment of a duty is omitted, and as a result, harm occurs.

And it happens—often forgotten, and this ruling reminds us—that the State has the duty to prevent force or violence from dominating social life. And for that, paradoxically, it holds the monopoly on force, which it cannot allow to be taken away, even momentarily. If the State omits fulfilling this duty, if instead of preventing force from being exercised in social life it tolerates or, in practice, permits it, if it leaves citizens alone and condemns them to defend themselves with their own hands or to resign themselves to coercion exercised by others, then the State is responsible for what occurs as a consequence of its inaction or incapacity. Societies invented the State in the form we know today (it is not so old, as evidenced by the word designating it appearing for the first time in Machiavelli, *lo stato*) to prevent fear of others from flooding social life. Therefore, if the State resigns itself to private individuals using force, it abdicates its specific function and loses all its legitimacy.

That is why this ruling, which holds the State responsible for what happened to that business in October and the following months, is a lesson that reminds us what the State is about. The State may fail in its distributive functions and may even be inefficient in some services, but what cannot happen is that it ceases to be what it is. And what it is depends on its capacity to monopolize force, which, as Weber reminds us, is its specific means.

The lesson of this ruling (there are others that establish State responsibility, of course, but this one is paradigmatic due to the facts that motivated it) has broad repercussions and teaches that what happens in areas of La Araucanía, or in the peripheral neighborhoods of Santiago, or in emblematic schools, and which harms farmers or businesses, residents or students, should, upon closer inspection, entail State responsibility.

And not only political responsibility.

This is because the State does not exist to sociologically or politically explain the origin of violence, nor to morally condemn it, nor for its authorities to exercise their loquacity on the news whenever violence is confirmed. It exists to banish violence from social life, by monopolizing it and, if necessary, exercising it homeopathically.