07/21/2020 - 21:57
- Clarín.com
- Opinion
Perhaps as a way to enrich an agenda dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, debt and the social crisis, Alberto Fernández intends to bring to light the judicial reform he announced upon taking office and at the opening of the ordinary session of Congress.
The novelty is part of a battery of official movements around the Judiciary. Especially noteworthy are the strong pressure to obtain the resignation of the Attorney General, Eduardo Casal, the objection of the Council of the Magistracy for the appointment of 38 judges - several involved in K corruption cases - during the Mauricio Macri administration, and the trial to introduce modifications to the current composition and structure of the Supreme Court.
The judicial reform of the President is probably the one that may have the greatest institutional luster. Although it remains to know its final content. It must go through the debate in the Congress that, a priori, generates apprehensions for the poor quality so far of the virtual sessions. Especially in the Senate.
Alberto's initiative, however, runs into a difficulty of internal politics. It concerns the interest of the vice president. The proposed changes aim to modify the Comodoro Py scheme in the future. To try to liquefy the objective power that the federal judges concentrate . But they lack retroactive effect. In other words, they will not alter the causes and the corruption trials that Cristina Fernández faces.
Hence, the Kirchner task runs on other lifts. The Attorney General, the magistrates appointed in the previous stage and the operation of the Court . To these goals, a decision by Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral was added in the last hours, which, at the end of the month, after he turns 75, will accept retirement.
Canicoba Corral ordered the prosecution of the former director of National Roads and current mayor of Capitán Sarmiento, Javier Iguacel. Also from the former Treasury Attorney, Bernardo Saravia Frías. They are accused of irregularities in the renegotiation of toll concession contracts in the Pan-American Highway and West Access. They would have benefited companies linked to Macri.
Up to there nothing to object. Except for the haste with which Canicoba Corral would have acted. As if he had to fulfill some commitment before parting . The judge decided to retire after Kirchnerism blocked in the Council of the Magistracy the treatment of four requests for impeachment that weighed against him. Almost all linked to the growth of a heritage that he could never justify.
History recognizes another pair of links. The cause originated in a complaint from the opaque ultra-Kirchner deputy Rodolfo Tailhade. Faced with the current mayor of Captain Sarmiento since Macrista times. In a complaint by Iguacel, on the other hand, he started the case that involves Cristina for favoring businessman K, Lázaro Báez, with the public work. That process is in oral trial started in 2019. In which the vice president declared. It has not yet resumed due to the quarantine ordered by the pandemic.
That rush of Canicoba Corral gave rise to a controversy. The judge ordered the prosecution without Iguacel or Saravia Frías having declared. The explanations at this point are forked. The judge claims that both former officials refused to do so. Iguacel explains that the magistrate denied him access to the evidence. Therefore it lacks the due knowledge of the accusation to be able to defend itself. Canicoba's justification would have sounded strange: he said that he could not provide him with the sheets because they are in the Court where there is no activity . They would not have been uploaded to any web page yet.
The blow to Iguacel, thus viewed, would raise suspicions. It is not only about the next witness in the trial for public works. He was also the one who prepared the complaint . Rapid processing would not only invalidate your statement . It could also be a reason for the vice president's defense to demand the nullity of the trial . Audacious and perhaps desperate maneuver for two reasons. The Canicoba Corral procedure will be contested and will enter the judicial labyrinth. Iguacel's complaint for the public work was endorsed in all judicial instances until reaching the present trial.
At this point the Court would enter. Also the manifest disagreement of Cristina that induced the President to submit to debate the restructuring of the Supreme Court. The five judges have in their possession hundreds of appeals filed by the defense, whose presentation they endorsed with a ruling that at the time jeopardized the initiation of the trial.
The vice president intends to make that request right now. It would automatically paralyze the development of the trial . Among so many things, there is an audit request on the total public works awarded to Báez. The expertise would take incalculable time. The current jurisprudence establishes that such procedures must be done after the judgment. It is what Cristina tries to avoid.
Simultaneously, Kirchnerism drives other initiatives. In the Judicial Council 38 judges who were transferred during the macrismo to fill vacant positions were placed under the magnifying glass . The subrogation mechanism that Cristina knew how to use with efficiency and discretion during her last term. The heap (38) would hide the true intentions. Above all, two of them are important: Leopoldo Bruglia and Pablo Bertuzzi. They arrived at the Federal Criminal Chamber from a Federal Oral Court. These are magistrates who understood corruption cases that affect the vice president. Especially, that of the notebooks of bribes .
The final stitch in that pattern would have to do with the Attorney General's Office. The chief of the prosecutors. The men in charge of investigating . Nor, in this case, would Cristina's past be altered. But it is not a minor fact that Kirchnerism is again in the administration and power. The future should be safeguarded.
Casal is an acting attorney. It remained after the resignation of Alejandra Gils Carbó. Also due to Macri's inability to gather two thirds in the Senate and appoint his replacement. Alberto would like Daniel Rafecas there. But with all those maneuvers in sight it seems difficult for the opposition to concede the agreement. There is another stumbling block: his appointment could not be made virtually because public hearings must first be met.
Kirchnerism is not usually intimidated by impediments . Press Casal to resign. I would like in office the third in the line of succession, Victor Abramovich, a man linked to CELS. Before it should sweep the natural heir of the current Attorney. This is Laura Monti, representative before the Supreme Court. Apparently, a dismantling that would require a lot of skill and no modesty.