Eduardo Paladini
08/02/2020 - 17:53
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Some will say that it is the classic blow in the middle of a power bid. Others will swear that it is the normal step after an unexpected stop. Maybe there is a little of everything. Anyway, it is expected that from this week the Supreme Court of the Nation will include in its agenda sensitive rulings for Kirchnerism , just when its leader, Vice President Cristina Kirchner, is leading strong pressure to expand the Supreme Court.
The sequence is known. After promising in the campaign that he would not touch his composition, with which he was publicly satisfied, Alberto Fernández gave in at the insistence of his running mate and endorsed the creation of an advisory commission that will recommend changes in the Court. Cristina, as believed by a wide sector of politics and the Court itself, has a central objective : to be able to modify the composition of that body to improve its complicated judicial situation.
The former president is concerned that the Court is not dealing with a series of appeals that she filed to overturn (or in the worst case delay) the only corruption trial that is underway against her : it is the one that investigates irregularities in the assignment of public road works during his government, with a privileged beneficiary, the businessman Lázaro Báez.
Does this mean that the High Court will now reject those requests? "I don't think they are doing it now, it would be very explicit," responds a judicial source familiar with the dispute. "But decisions against former Kirchner officials could be expected," he adds. On July 16, the Court rejected the claims of José López - the former secretary who revoked bags with silver in a convent -, his wife, the alleged figurehead Andrés Galera; also against other former K officials, such as Julio de Vido and Roberto Baratta. Will it follow that same line?
Another official who closely follows the fight endorses the idea that more failures will come, but frames it within the new context generated by the coronavirus quarantine : "In the last two months, you had between 150 and 200 failures per week. Now that the fair was raised, the Court should return to about 400 or more per week, which was the rhythm it had last year. As long as you do not have an infection that implies slowing down the rhythm. It is a new normal. " A third source took away his expectations and limited himself to saying that "for this week there is nothing important."
As Clarín recounted , in 2019 the Supreme Court exceeded 29,000 decisions. And, as they point out there, more than 60% was due to appeals from the national government itself in sentences in favor of retirees (especially) and employees of the security forces who received part of their salary in black. What did the Court want to convey? On the one hand, it is far from paralyzed, as the President himself suggested; and on the other, that the inordinate number of rulings it takes out is due precisely to appeals from the Casa Rosada.
Also in one sector of the Supreme Court, criticism by the head of Cassation and referent of Legitimate Justice, Alejandro Slokar , who questioned the time to resolve some resources, such as those related to the "Massot case": "He was asked for impeachment for delaying a case against José López, they accused him of covering up, and in another against Carlos Menem, for the issue of weapons, it also took years.
Internal and decisions without agenda
As it prepares for this new fight against Kirchnerism, the Court goes through its own - and deep - internal one. Some of this was exposed last Wednesday, when only the vice deputy, Elena Highton de Nolasco , accepted the invitation of Alberto Fernández to present the judicial reform. The Government, of course, had called the five members, but the other four (President Carlos Rosenkrantz and the members Ricardo Lorenzetti, Horacio Rosatti and Juan Carlos Maqueda ) rejected the invitation.
The Minister of Justice, Marcela Losardo, justified that some magistrates, such as Rosatti or Lorenzetti, were in Santa Fe passing the quarantine. There were other guests who agreed to participate by zoom . In her case, not even that. "They were invited on the hour and without telling them what they were going to present. As they are educated, they were grateful, but why were they going to participate?", Made clear the anger of a source close to the Court, who insisted that the decision was made by each one.
For two years, there has been a noticeable change in the operation of the Supreme Court . After several periods in which the leadership was clearly under the command of Ricardo Lorenzetti -by then its owner-, a few months after Rosenkrantz's replacement it was decided that all the central decisions of the Court (not just the rulings) would be "collegial "by majority. This gave it a new dynamic and was generating transitory consensus.
Thus, for example, after Rosenkrantz, Rosatti and Highton decided to remove Lorenzetti, then the so-called Peronist majority (Lorenzetti, Maqueda and Rosatti) was formed, which brought out several rulings against the Macrista government and ostensibly left only the president of the Supreme Court ; and now the men seem to be regrouping , with Highton outside, because of his closeness to Alberto Fernández.
The most strained relationship remains that of Rosenkrantz and Lorenzetti . The pace and tenor of the mistakes will depend on how the debate between everyone is settled week by week. This adds uncertainty and surprise to every decision. Kirchnerism awaits alert.