The Political Trial Commission of the Chamber of Deputies once again summoned prosecutor Carlos Stornelli for next Tuesday, who did not attend last week to present himself before that body, and in the event that the judicial officer decides not to attend, the ruling party does not rule out promote his impeachment to make him appear by the public force, within the framework of the removal process of members of the Supreme Court that is being followed in the lower house.
In the event Stornelli is absent again, the commission he presides over Carolina Gaillard (FDTR-Entre Rios) In any case, it will continue with the process against the highest court and the testimony of new guests invited to present before that body, which opened an investigation into the actions of the magistrates (Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Ricardo Lorenzetti) at the end of January. ) that make up the highest court.
For this week, and in accordance with the agreed schedule, the Commission will continue with the exposition of officials of the secretariats of the Court and then it will diagram the testimonies, dividing them according to the main files that are analyzed.
It is about the cause of the “2×1”, the repeal of the law of the Council of the Magistracy and the replacement of the previous one repealed in 2006 and the case for the co-participation of the city of Buenos Aires, as agreed.
In this context, in addition to Stornelli, the lawyers Juan Manuel Olima Espel (Institutional Secretary of the Attorney General of the Nation); Marcelo Mazzeo (lawyer), Sebastián Garay (Secretary of Original Judgments of the Court) and Natalia Hilda Monayer (Member of the President of the Court, Horacio Rosatti).
The removal process from the Court, promoted by President Alberto Fernández and a dozen governors, seeks to advance the accumulation of evidence.
The decision to summon Stornelli again was adopted last Tuesday, during the last meeting of the Committee on Impeachment of Deputies, which lasted for more than seven hours.
On that occasion, the ex-head of the Special Investigation Unit of the AMIA Attack and ex-radical senator Mario Cimadevilla and the lawyers Sergio Nápoli and Gustavo Naveira, from Judicial Clerks 4 and 7 of the Supreme Court, spoke.
Stornelli had been summoned as a witness to explain the reasons why he requested the closure of the case that had been initiated to investigate the alleged leaked chats between Silvio Robles (a close associate of the president of the court, Horacio Rosatti) and the Minister of Security and Buenos Aires Justice, Marcelo D’Alessandro, who is on leave as a result of the dissemination of those conversations.
The proposition of the ruling party to summon Stornelli again was put to a vote in the commission and approved by 16 votes against 14 of JxC.
“If he does not appear, we will have to start an impeachment procedure to be able to bring him in by public force,” Gaillard said at the last meeting of the commission, referring to the situation of the federal prosecutor.
And he added: “We consider that Stornelli has to come to testify in person. We are going to summon him again,” announced the head of the Commission, rejecting the prosecutor’s proposal to testify in writing.
The notification for Stornelli to appear in Congress arrived on Wednesday, March 1. and there he was quoted the passage of the regulations of the Impeachment Commission in which it is clarified that his attendance “is not optional.”
Based on this regulation, the Public Ministry official cannot take advantage of the exception provided for by the Criminal Procedure Code for magistrates, who are authorized to declare in writing or from their workplaces.
“The magistrates and officials indicated in article 250 of the Criminal Procedure Code, with the exception of the president and vice president of the Nation and the governors and deputy governors of the provinces, will also be obliged to appear before the Commission (for Impeachment) to testify.”reads the regulation that was cited to formulate this call.
The proposition of the ruling party to summon Stornelli again was put to a vote in the commission and approved by 16 votes against 14 of JxC.
Stornelli’s possible second “missing” before the Impeachment Committee will repeat a practice that the prosecutor already resorted to before a summons to testify when he did not appear at the summons of the then federal judge of Dolores, Alejo Ramos Padilla, to investigate him in the framework of the so-called ‘D’Alessio case’.
In that case — in which the false lawyer Marcelo D’Alessio was being investigated for extortion and illegal espionage — the prosecutor was summoned by a judge and not by Congress and the summons was as a defendant and not as a witness.
After six calls, the prosecutor appeared before Ramos Padilla, who would finally prosecute him for presenting an illicit association based on his ties to D’Alessio.
