In a ruling that strikes at government policies that grant wide swathes of land to Mapuche groups, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation rejected a complaint appeal that had been presented by the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI), also annulling Resolution 90/20 of that body, which had recognized 481 hectares near Bariloche for the Lof Che Buenuleo community. . The Court annulled INAI Resolution 90/20, which had delivered 481 hectares to that Mapuche group, but Emilio Friedrich He went to court claiming that this land, 92 hectares, was his.
Friedrich’s lawsuit began with a presentation before the Federal Administrative Litigation Court 1, but in June 2021 that court rejected the claim, so Friedrich took the matter to Chamber IV of the Federal Administrative Litigation Appeals Chamber. In that second instance, Friedrich obtained the first favorable ruling, but then the ones who appealed were the INAI lawyers and the Mapuche groups, so the issue reached the Supreme Court for study.
On August 18, 2022, in his last day in charge of INAI, Magdalena Odarda signed a resolution confirming that “mResolution 90/2020 provided for the Technical, Legal and Cadastral Survey to be fulfilled in the Lof Che Buenuleo Mapuche community and to recognize the current, traditional and public occupation that it exercises over its territory”.
However, in the decision of the Court of Appeals in Administrative Litigation, it had been indicated that “the duty that falls on the National State -derived from our National Constitution and from the other norms that must be adjusted to it- to assure the indigenous communities the full enjoyment, possession and ownership of the lands that they traditionally and historically occupied, can only be fulfilled through the implementation of administrative procedures that, in order to carry out such purpose, safeguard the right of defense not only of the aboriginal groups but also of individuals whose legitimate interests may be directly affected by the measures adopted”.
However, the INA appealed and its proposal was rejected, for which reason it appealed to the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court, which has now definitively closed the case, considering that this claim was presented untimely and outside the legal deadlines where that claim should have been made.
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