Lucia Salinas
06/02/2020 - 9:41
- Clarín.com
- Politics
The Judicial Council, responsible for managing the funds of the Judiciary, informed the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2) that it works on a platform to carry out the judgment against Cristina Kirchner remotely. While waiting for the technological system to guarantee security measures for a trial of such magnitude, businessman Lázaro Báez and former official Nelson Periotti - two other defendants - have already stated through their defenses that they do not agree with resume hearings under this modality . They consider that it is not a suitable methodology or that it guarantees a good development of the judgment.
Justice is in an unprecedented situation, particularly the Courts with trials in charge, since par excellence the work they do is in person . The prolonged quarantine following the coronavirus pandemic prompted many judges to evaluate the resolution of some hearings online.
The debate focused on the TOF 2 trial, made up of judges Andrés Basso, Jorge Gorini and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, and whose main defendant is Cristina Kirchner. The vice president is appointed as the head of an illicit association that defrauded the State, having directed public road works in favor of Lázaro Báez.
The accusation involves 25 other defendants, including the owner of the Austral Group who, according to the accusation, benefited from 51 tenders : all of them plagued with irregularities ranging from average overpricing of 65%, contracts without capacity to work, redeterminations of costs, among others. These maneuver materialized in awards for $ 46,000 million.
On May 21, the trial was one year old. The hearings are detained as a result of the pandemic and opened the debate regarding the technological resources of the Judiciary, crossed by the advance of the Government on Justice, where the vice president accumulates nine cases brought to oral trial.
The prosecutor of the case, Diego Luciani, was the first to require that the trial be resumed online, but upon obtaining TOF 2, a response from the Council of the Magistracy where it was pointed out that the conditions are not yet suitable for a case It would demand more than 50 people connected, other measures were analyzed. The justifications of the Magistracy, predictably, generated claims from the opposition.
Faced with the uncertainty surrounding the implementation times of the system that is developing the Council's technology area, the Court's judges asked that "the possibilities of hiring be informed - until these tasks are completed and the application described is available - a premium license from the Zoom platform , in favor of this judicial body ".
The option is viable, but a drawback arose and that is that some defenses have already stated that they do not agree with the online modality. Lázaro Báez, in a document presented by his lawyers, digitally, stated that he does not want a hearing remotely since he argues that the control of the testimonial evidence "will not be the same as in the face-to-face trial . "
The trial concluded on December 2 with the inquiries, when eight days before taking office as vice president, Cristina declared before the Court accusing them of having already convicted her and maintaining that the cause was "armed with political persecution". It was when he installed the concept of "lawfare".
After that, the stage of testimonial statements began. Of the 180 accepted witnesses, only six people exposed to the TOF 2 . In March prior to the start of the health emergency, it was the turn of Javier Iguacel, former holder of National Roads during the macrista administration and complainant in the case. If the hearings are taken again remotely, it will be this testimony that will be heard.
Báez's defense disagrees, and Periotti, former holder of National Roads during Kirchnerism, agreed. It was this body that awarded 51 tenders to Grupo Austral.
To resume the trial , must all parties agree? According to judicial sources, the situation is otherwise "unpublished". "We never find this situation where oral and public trials should be done online, and the ideal is that all parties agree, each request will be analyzed in a particular way," they indicated.
