The Federal Chamber of Cassation annulled the prosecution once morest Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchnerin a case in which she had been accused by the late judge Claudio Bonadio for the alleged shipment of newspapers, furniture and other objects to Santa Cruz on the presidential plane.
The highest criminal court gave rise to a statement by the defense of the former president for the alleged Bonadio’s lack of impartialitywho was the one who filed the complaint, stayed with the investigation instead of promoting the drawing of another magistrate for the procedure, and finally ordered the prosecution.
The senator had also been charged in the case. oscar parrilliwho accompanied the challenge once morest Bonadio and the questions for his actions as a complainant and judge of his own complaint.
“The investigation of this file dates back to events that would have been committed between 2003 and 2015 and was initiated three years following the alleged commission of the crime had ceased, at the request of the challenged magistrate himself, who ordered the extraction of testimonies in the framework of another process under his responsibility, thus giving rise to criminal prosecution,” states the ruling, signed by the judges Alejandro Slokar and Carlos Mahiques.
The Federal Chamber had rejected the arguments once morest the origin and investigation of the case, while partially confirming the prosecution once morest the vice president.
Cassation considered that “the circumstances outlined show, on the one hand, the Well-founded fear of partiality with respect to the then acting magistrate, who has always been prevented from intervening in this case“.
In addition, the ruling assessed that, given the arguments of the former president and Parrilli “the nullity raised regarding the alleged violation of the guarantee of the natural judge and of impartiality, motivated by the circumstance that this investigation was in charge of the same judge who ordered the extraction of testimonies that gave rise to to the process”.
The third judge of the court, William Yacobucciwas inclined to reject Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s proposal because “it is not directed once morest a final sentence.”
The case is one of the eight simultaneous inquiries that Bonadio ordered for the former president, as a result of the file of the photocopies of the notebooks, on February 25, 2019. The former president had been prosecuted for the crime of “embezzlement”, a decision that was partially endorsed by the Federal Chamber, in a ruling signed by judges Leopoldo Bruglia, Pablo Bertuzzi and Mariano Llorens. The Cassation Chamber took the situation back to its initial moment and ordered a new pronouncement to be issued.
