© KEYSTONE/AP/Victor R. Caivano
“Judicial war” against “political persecution”: thousands of people demonstrated Tuesday in Buenos Aires, to demand a reform of justice, which power and opposition accuse each other of instrumentalizing.
“No to the Mafia Court”, “Justice would be to imprison those who stole the IMF loan!” Said the banners held up during the march, organized by movements close to power, in front of the Palace of Justice in Buenos Areas. Similar marches were held in several cities in Argentina.
The demonstrators, including unions, associations, lawyers and elected officials, denounced a justice instrumentalized by the right, a “lawfare” (judicial war), manifest according to them, in several proceedings in progress against the Peronist vice-president ( and Head of State from 2007 to 2015) Cristina Kirchner.
The center-right opposition of ex-president Mauricio Macri denounces in the mobilization a “pustchist behavior” against the judiciary, which sends a “serious institutional message”. The opposition accuses the government of clearing itself of corruption by pointing the finger at the judges.
Key project
President Alberto Fernandez, a lawyer and professor of criminal law, has made justice reform one of his key projects, denouncing the lack of transparency of justice and “procedural arbitrariness”.
The reform desired by the executive would in particular increase the number of federal judges from 23 to 46, in order to avoid “concentrating decision-making power in a reduced number of magistrates”.
An overhaul of the Supreme Court would also see the creation of a new instance of last resort, which would relegate the current Court to only cases of constitutionality.
For the opposition, it is neither more nor less than a desire to manufacture justice to orders, in particular to judge the proceedings against Cristina Kirchner, which sooner or later will arrive before the highest judicial body.
Mauricio Macri refers to the Peronist power the same arguments of “political persecution” as those brandished by Cristina Kirchner, as when he was charged last December with “espionage” during his presidency.
Defiance of justice
Distrust of the justice system in Argentina, although hailed for having condemned the leaders of the military dictatorship (1976-83), has increased in recent decades.
As perhaps never before in the country, “the judiciary has come to occupy a central place in the political space”, analyzes Ricardo Gil Lavedra, a veteran jurist, who sat in the trials of the junta.
“This new prominence has awakened the interest of politicians on how he could avoid surprises and get justice more favorable, adds Judge Lavedra.
It started in the 90s, under the presidency of Carlos Menem, with already a remodeling of the Supreme Court, he specifies.
For him, even if there would be “possible improvements” to the functioning of a restricted Supreme Court (five members), any reform of justice “must be dictated by a much broader agreement, to remove all suspicion”. Instead, he predicts “a very tense year” around the reform.
A demonstration against the judicial reform project, at the call of lawyers and jurists in particular, is planned for Thursday.