The Supreme Court of Justice revoked the parliamentary decree that designated the senator from the Frente de Todos Martín Doñate as representative for the second minority in the Council of the Judiciary and held that this bench corresponds to the representative of the PRO Luis Juez.
“It is undisputed that at the time of the notification of the judgment of December 16 – and even after the expiration of the 120 days set for its implementation – the second minority for the purposes of the formation of the Judicial Council was the PRO Front” , pointed out the Court in its resolution signed by its president, Horacio Rosatti; his vice, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Minister Juan Carlos Maqueda.
The interbloc of national senators of the Front of All (FdT) described as “political” and “inapplicable” the Court’s ruling. “Today’s was a new political ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice that represents a clear conflict of powers between the Judicial and Legislative Powers,” the pro-government senators said in a statement, and tomorrow they will expand their position at a press conference to the 12 in the upper house.
They added that “the vocation to interfere in the political decisions of Congress is thus demonstrated, arrogating powers that exceed the Judiciary and with the clear objective of benefiting the macrismo in the composition of the Judicial Council.”
For his part, opposition senator Luis Juez said on Twitter that “in a resounding ruling, the CSJN told Cristina Kirchner: ‘Not like that’. As much as she believes it, she is not above the law and the banking the Council of the Judiciary that took it from us, now has to return it. We must never lower our arms in the face of injustice”.
Peronist labor lawyer Héctor Recalde, a member of the Council, said for his part that the Court’s ruling raises a “conflict of powers” and warned that there could be a “political trial” of the magistrates of the high court.
Recalde told Radio Nacional that “it is the power of the Senate to appoint its representatives,” and expressed that “with the Court’s resolution, a manual of normative violations can be created.”
The Court referred with its ruling to the judgment of last December that declared unconstitutional the formation of thirteen members of the Council and raised it to twentythereby forcing both chambers to appoint new representatives.
According to the information cited, at the time of the ruling, the second minority corresponded to the Frente PRO bloc, with nine senators, who proposed the Judge as counselor.
The Court’s resolution
The opposition bloc announced its candidate for the Presidency of the Senate on April 13, but five days later the first minority, the Frente de Todos, decided to divide its bloc and thus demand the appointment of the counselor.
Supreme Court ruling by Telam on Scribd
For the Court, this decision of the FdT “disregards the principle of good faith, cardinal in legal relations.”
However, in the ruling, the three judges of the Court clarified that it is not the competence of the high court to analyze the way in which the Senate organizes its internal functioning, or how the conformation of the blocks is defined, but rather the way in which they must be identified to compose the Council of the Judiciary.
“The behaviors described exceed a disquisition on the degrees of political affinity to establish themselves as parliamentary blocs and show that the partition violates the provisions of the sentence,” the Court defined.
For the highest court of justice, it is not lawful that, through its division, the ruling bloc has kept three of the four places that correspond to the Senate in the Council of the Magistracy.
Judge, as soon as Doñate’s appointment was known, he resorted to the courts to claim his appointment with a protection in the federal Contentious-Administrative jurisdiction.
On April 30, the justice system rejected the protection of Judgeunder the doctrine that the designation of the legislative representatives in the Council was not a matter that could be prosecuted, but rather a political instance.
The judge then resorted to the second instance and on May 10 received a similar response: “The decision of the members of the Upper House to form part of a bloc or move away from the one to which they belong is a choice of strict content and political affinity and , as such, is exempt from the control of the magistrates”.
Then the Cordovan senator resorted to a complaint to the Court, which finally agreed with him and revoked Doñate’s appointment and enabled him to take over as Judge, even though the mandate of the councilors expires this month.
The decision generated reactions in the opposition, such as the case of the head of the PRO and presidential candidate Patricia Bulrrich, who stated that “the Justicialist Party cheated in the Senate to keep a place on the Council of the Magistrature. With Luis Judge we went to court. We won!”
In the same sense, the president of the block of deputies of the UCR, Mario Negri, expressed himself: “Not everything is valid. Cristina ordered the division of the K block of Senators to monopolize 3 of the 4 seats in the Council of the Magistracy. She is enlivened, that many celebrated, was clearly irregular and today the Supreme Court revoked it. I congratulate Luis Juez for not lowering his arms!”
The president of the senators interbloc of JxC, Alfredo Cornejo, expressed this afternoon that “justice was done” and that “in Argentina, there is no longer a place for the manipulation of Kirchnerism.”
The leader of the caucus of radical senators, Luis Naidenoff, described the Court’s ruling as “exemplary” and considered that the Judge “should take over as advisor for the minority.”
