2023-10-11 23:20:42
After 23 meetings and 65 testimonial statements, he officialdom took an important step this Wednesday in the Impeachment Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, by approve the charges once morest the four judges of the Supreme Court of Justice (Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Ricardo Lorenzetti) for alleged poor performance in three different cases.
One by one, The charges were approved with 16 votes from the Frente de Todos out of the 31 members of the commission. Together for Change and Alejandro “Topo” Rodríguez (Federal Interblock) rejected the advance.
Now it was transferred to the magistrates, who will be summoned to the commission for Tuesday, November 7 if they wish to exercise their right to defense in person. They can also present their defense in writing. The ruling party suspects that they will not attend.
Once that instance has been exhausted, the signing of the accusatory opinions will follow, which will take place between November 13 and 17. The last step of this stage is the approval of these opinions in the venue, which still has no date. For that, two-thirds of the votes are needed, a number that the Frente de Todos (now Unión por la Patria) does not have guaranteed.
“Everyone knew, since this process was opened, that this was not going to reach the venue and that the majorities that are needed were not going to come together in the venue. It was a political decision. Politics today is being looked at by society when it comes to conducive solutions, and we have worked so that the papers end up in a drawer,” lamented Álvaro González (PRO).
From the same block, Pablo Tonelli maintained that “the evidence did not demonstrate or convince that there are reasons to politically prosecute the judges of the Court. On the contrary, everything has reaffirmed that there were no reasons and that this is an attack once morest the Court.”
On the contrary, the president of the commission, Carolina Gaillard, defended the decision to move forward: “Having 14 requests for impeachment. It is our obligation to carry out this procedure. We cannot fail to fulfill our obligation because we do not have the necessary amount of will to accuse. First it is investigated and then it is accused or not depending on the result of that investigation.”
The approved charges have to do with three causes: the ruling called “2×1” that benefited the genocidaires of the last dictatorship with the calculation of the sentence; the ruling that favored the City of Buenos Aires in the co-participation process; and the ruling that altered the composition of the Judicial Council.
Previously, the charges once morest Judge Maqueda had already been approved for his responsibility in the “irregular” management of the social work of the Judicial Branch of the Nation, and in parallel, a subcommittee made up of pro-government deputies studies the role that the other three judges had in that issue..
Furthermore, it remains for the Frente de Todos to advance with the charges once morest Rosenkrantz for alleged abuse of power, for not having excused himself when issuing rulings that benefited companies that were his clients.
Court trial: the “2×1” ruling
The ruling party considered it proven that during the government of Mauricio Macri, the Ministry of Justice, headed by Germán Garavano, granted the then judge Elena Highton de Nolasco to remain on the Court following the age of 75 (by not appealing the protection that the judge had presented) in exchange for voting in favor of the “2×1” ruling and forming the majority along with Rosenkrantz and Rosatti.
Once Highton was confirmed to the Court, the doctrine was changed with the “Schiffrin” ruling of 2017, which established that at age 75 judges must retire or obtain a new agreement from the Senate if they wish to continue in office. According to the report, Judge Rosenkrantz kept that file “withheld” in his office until Highton’s favorable vote was secured.
Court trial: social work of the PJN
In this case, the ruling party points once morest another judge, Maqueda, who “played a decisive role” as supervisor of the social work of the Judicial Branch of the Nation for 13 years, between April 7, 2008 and August 31, 2021. They warn that in an audit carried out over that period “dysfunctionalities” were detected and that “there have been a causal link between the omission of supervision, which Maqueda has incurred, with the production of the shortcomings or irregularities”, linked to lack of budgets, irregular hiring, cuts in benefits and lack of medicines, among others.
Trial to the Court: Co-participation
The Court is also in the crosshairs for the precautionary measure issued at the end of 2022 that ordered 2.95% of the federal co-participation for the transfer of the security service from the Nation to the City of Buenos Aires. A percentage that, for the Frente de Todos, was determined “without an objective guideline.” The ruling party maintains that this ruling was negotiated between the former Buenos Aires Minister of Justice and Security, Marcelo D’Alessandro, and Rosatti’s advisor Silvio Robles, according to alleged chats that were leaked.
Judicial Council
The accusation has to do with the ruling issued in December 2021 following a lawsuit from the Public Bar Association of the Federal Capital. In that ruling, the Court declared Law 26,080 unconstitutional, that regulated the composition and operation of the Judicial Council, giving Congress a period of 120 days to enact a new law. Since that did not happen, the same ruling restored the old law, which had been repealed in 2006. The ruling party denounces that in this way the court arrogated to itself legislative powers.
No witnesses
The four witnesses were missing from this Wednesday’s meeting who had been summoned at the proposal of the Civic Coalition within the framework of its own request for impeachment once morest Lorenzetti, presented in 2017.
Héctor Marchi, former administrator of the Court, had been summoned (who already testified in the commission on two previous occasions); the judicial unionist Julio Piumato; the businessman Gustavo Tita, a resident of Rafaela, where Lorenzetti is from; and Adrián Miretti, president of the mutual Pyme Rural, linked to the judge and investigated in Justice.
The head of the Civic Coalition bloc, Juan Manuel López, denounced that the ruling party left the Lorenzetti case for last because “it has less interest in accusing him.” “We are not surprised that they have left this cause for last nor that the witnesses are not present today,” he suspected, and added: “We know of the pressures and calls to different actors in the political system.”
“Lorenzetti and Marchi do not want to come forward and face our uncomfortable questions, which we have denounced for years and years,” contributed Paula Oliveto, also from the Civic Coalition.
Gaillard denied that there was “discrimination” in the treatment of the Lorenzetti case. “We do not discriminate with respect to this or that judge of the Court. Here the whole test occurred. The presidency did not choose what evidence was generated, to avoid any type of suspicion,” he clarified.
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