04/29/2020 - 17:35
- Clarín.com
- Politics
The controversy over the release of thousands of prisoners under the nebulous argument of the threat of contagion of coronavirus in prisons continues to add voices. The Association of Prosecutors and Magistrates of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Nation, chaired by federal prosecutor Carlos Rívolo, expressed this Wednesday "their concern about their excessive and inadequate use for the treatment of releases of persons legitimately deprived of their liberty , causing confusion and it capsizes in the already affected general social framework, and especially in the victims and their relatives. "
In an energetic statement, and "depending on the social debate that emerged," the organization recalled that "both preventive prisons and sentences are arranged within a framework of exceptional and proportionality, which implies that prior to their disposition, the assessment of the different circumstances of the crime at hand, where its severity, the consistency of the evidence, the procedural risks, the individual conditions of the accused and the damage caused to the victim are analyzed ",
"That is why we consider that any modification of that measure of deprivation of liberty should resume that same path, repudiating any automatic resolution that seeks to take a shortcut based only on a hypothetical and general health situation," says the Association of Prosecutors. In good romance: they disagree head-on with the general habeas corpus such as the one signed by the Buenos Aires Cassation judge Víctor Violini, or the urbi et orbi recommendations that have been taking place these days by different judges, specialists and officials of the Executive Power national and provincial.
"The specific cases where some convicts obtained the benefit of house arrest with apparent grounds, their questioning should be in the legal framework, following the corresponding recursive route , where the responsibilities for any irregularity were determined," the statement continues, in a critical hint at the intervention of the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber, whose judges "advised" their colleagues from lower levels to consider multiplying their releases. This recommendation, embodied in a court decision, has already been declared unconstitutional by a judge of the Federal Oral Court 7, precisely because it interferes with the power that judges and enforcement bodies have over their respective detainees.
"Notwithstanding this," continues the text of the Prosecutors, "we urge the judicial magistrates to be strict in the mitigation of home prisons, in the control of their compliance and that when the health risks are overcome, their restoration be immediately ordered to the prison units of the condemned. " Clearer, impossible.
The Association also recalls that despite the difficulties posed by the quarantine and the extraordinary judicial fair, the prosecutors "continue to carry out their role, ensuring the legality of the procedure and defending the interests of society , thus guaranteeing the rights of the victim and his due intervention in the process, as established by current legislation. "
"The emergency in which we travel requires strengthening efforts and deepening prudence in official and social procedures , so as to warn and attend to most of the risk situations that may arise in all sectors of our community, without this implies the creation of a vulnerable state of no citizen " , they conclude.
In addition to its head, Carlos Rívolo, the statement is signed by the vice presidents of the Association of Prosecutors, Ricardo Toranzos, María Fernanda Poggi and Carina Jaime, and the secretary Susana Pernas.