Human Rights Watch (HRW), a non-governmental organization dedicated to the investigation, defense and promotion of human rights directly labeled as “hostile” some judicial reforms promoted by the government of Alberto Fernandez in the middle of impeachment trial against the Supreme Court. Faced with this, the response of the ruling party was not long in coming.
As part of the annual reports of each country on the issues that put human rights in conflictthe organization maintained that “President Alberto Fernandezthe vice president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and members of the government have used hostile rhetoric against the judiciary”.
In that sense, The report mentioned the corruption cases against the vice president as one of the reasons for the ruling party to carry out this “hostile rhetoric” against judges and prosecutors. “The vice president rejected the allegations, accusing the prosecutor of carrying out an abusive and politically motivated investigation and the judges of being part of a “mafia” that would seek to keep her away from public service,” the report recalled.
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Thus, HRW maintained that, from its point of view, “the government of Fernández and its allies introduced reforms to the justice system that could undermine the independence of courts and prosecutors. In turn, he analyzed that these circumstances “undermine the rule of law”.
In this regard, the Secretary of Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla, considered the report as “inconsistent” and “partial”, for which he denounced that HRW “did not request” any meeting to receive information from the Government. “Our government, unlike the previous one, respects the work of NGOs, even when they criticize and question us,” he shot on his Twitter account.
The reforms that Human Rights Watch questioned
Among the actions mentioned by the organization are: the extension of the Supreme Courtthe interim nature of the Attorney General of the Nation and the conflict over the Council of the Magistracy.
“In September, pro-government legislators and other parties approved a bill in the Senate that expands the Supreme Court from 5 to 15 justicesa measure that previous governments have used to co-opt the Court,” he explained.
After that, he referred to the lack of consensus in the Senate to gather the necessary votes to appoint an attorney general. “In April, the Judicial Council, which selects judges for federal and national courts, changed its structure following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling. The sentence establishes the incorporation of the president of the Supreme Court as president of the body and adds representatives of Congress, the Bar Association, the academic sector and judges”, he said in relation to the conflict with the Council of the Magistracy.
Thus, he pointed against Fernández for criticizing the new structure and urging Congress to approve the bill promoted by the Frente de Todos. This way, Pietragalla continued with his defense and clarified: “The Rule of Law is not undermined when mechanisms provided for in the National Constitution itself are used to recover the lost legitimacy of the Supreme Court”. On the contrary, he maintained that it is undermined “when judges are appointed by decree, causes are invented to displace the Attorney General, when a lawfare practice is established against a political sector.”
Criticism of HRW
The Secretary of Human Rights continued with his enumerations and mentioned the lack of investigation on the financing of the attack on the vice president or the scandal of the chats between judges, entrepreneurs of media power and officials.
In addition, he recalled that a rule of law is undermined when “judges who pass laws in favor of the most vulnerable are harassed or when intelligence agents are used to spy on political opponents, prisoners and lawyers”.
“We regret that HRW has remained silent in the face of such outrages recognized by the UN Rapporteur on Judicial Independence”, affirmed Pietragalla. Regarding the impeachment trial against the Supreme Court, he stated that it is a “constitutional and democratic mechanism”for which he added that this process “allowed the Menemist Court to be replaced in 2003, a measure that was even applauded by HRW.”
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