Marcela Alejandra Ríos Tobar (born 14 December 1966) is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist, and politician. She served as Minister of Justice and Human Rights under President Gabriel Boric from March 2022 to January 2023. She subsequently became regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).
Early life and education
Ríos was born in Santiago, Chile, on 14 December 1966. She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and Latin American studies from York University in Toronto, Canada. She subsequently obtained a master's degree in social sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Mexico and a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Academic and professional career
Ríos has worked in academia, international development, and public policy, specializing in governance, comparative politics in Latin America, electoral systems, and gender and politics. She has taught at the University of Chile, the University of Santiago, Chile, and Diego Portales University. She has also served on the boards of organizations including ComunidadMujer and Espacio Público.
She was coordinator of the Governance Program at FLACSO from 2005 to 2007. In 2006, she joined a presidential commission tasked with proposing reforms to Chile's electoral system. During the second administration of President Michelle Bachelet, she served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Pension Reform in 2014–2015 and the Presidential Advisory Council against Conflicts of Interest, Influence Peddling and Corruption in 2015.
Ríos worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Chile for more than 14 years. She served as governance coordinator and later as assistant resident representative, where she worked on studies and assessments concerning governance, democracy, gender, and political institutions. Her work included the UNDP's 2010 National Human Development Report on gender equality, the 2014 State of Democracy Assessment, and comparative studies on democracy in Chile and Latin America.
She has also published on gender and politics, democracy, and political institutions. Her books and edited works include ¿Un nuevo silencio feminista? La transformación de un movimiento social en el Chile postdictadura (2003), co-authored with others, and Mujer y política. El impacto de las cuotas de género en América Latina (2008), which she edited.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights
On 21 January 2022, then President-elect Gabriel Boric announced Ríos as his nominee for Minister of Justice and Human Rights. A member of Convergencia Social at the time, she became the seventh woman to hold the position. She assumed office on 11 March 2022, when Boric's administration began.
During her tenure, the ministry advanced measures concerning access to justice, children's rights, human rights, prison policy, and gender-based violence. Among the initiatives pursued under her ministry were the implementation of a specialized legal-representation program for children and adolescents, work on an integral truth, justice and reparations agenda for victims of human-rights violations during the 2019 social unrest, and legislative efforts concerning alternatives to imprisonment for pregnant women and mothers of young children.
Her tenure also included the implementation of a law providing for electronic monitoring as a protective measure in domestic-violence cases and the promulgation of legislation criminalizing the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
The ministry was also involved in the government's unsuccessful attempts to secure Senate approval for its nominees for National Prosecutor. The Senate rejected the government's nominee José Morales Opazo in November 2022, after previously rejecting Marta Herrera, a process in which Ríos appeared before the Senate's Constitution, Legislation, Justice and Regulation Committee.
Resignation and constitutional accusation
On 30 December 2022, President Boric granted 13 presidential pardons, 12 to people convicted of offenses committed during the 2019 social unrest and one to former militant of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front Jorge Mateluna. Ríos signed the corresponding decrees as Minister of Justice and Human Rights. The ministry subsequently acknowledged that an initial public list of the pardoned people had been incomplete.
On 7 January 2023, President Boric requested Ríos's resignation amid criticism of the handling of the pardons and a pending criminal complaint concerning the pardon of Mateluna. Ríos left office the same day, after less than ten months as minister.
An opposition group of deputies subsequently filed a constitutional accusation against Ríos on 9 January, alleging violations of law in connection with the pardons. The Chamber of Deputies rejected the accusation on 25 January by 82 votes to 49, with three abstentions.
Later career
Following her departure from government, Ríos continued working on issues of democracy, governance, human rights, and gender. She became a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford's Latin American Centre and worked as a consultant for organizations including the Ford Foundation and the UNDP.
On 2 January 2024, she became regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at International IDEA, succeeding Daniel Zovatto. In that role, she oversees the organization's country programs in Panama, Peru, and Chile, as well as its regional portfolio, and provides technical assistance on democracy and elections.
In this capacity, she has continued to publish and speak on democratic governance and gender equality. In 2024, she authored an International IDEA study on political violence against women in the digital sphere in Latin America, examining how online harassment and other forms of abuse can undermine women's political participation.
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