(Credit: Telam)
(CNN Spanish) -
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, confirmed by decree this Thursday the displacement of three federal judges who intervene, among others, in files against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, as published in the Official Gazette.
These are the magistrates Leopoldo Bruglia, Pablo Bertuzzi (both members of the Federal Court of Appeals based in the city of Buenos Aires) and Germán Castelli (member of the Oral Court in Federal Criminal number 7).
With these transfers, vacancies are reopened in the courts in question and the ruling party could promote their replacements, since it has a majority in the Senate.
The decree of the Executive Power confirms what the Senate ordered on Wednesday in a session chaired by Fernández de Kirchner herself, where the pro-government majority voted to reject the transfers that former President Mauricio Macri had ordered in 2018.
Following that decision, these chambermaids had been placed in key positions for the future of the files of alleged corruption during the previous Peronist government, among others, those involving the vice president.
Fernández de Kirchner, who was president of Argentina between 2007 and 2015, has always rejected the accusations against her and said that she was the subject of political persecution during the government of the Cambiemos coalition, which, in turn, rejected the latter approach of Fernández de Kirchner.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Credit: Daniel Jayo / Getty Images)
The former Minister of Justice of the Macri government, Germán Garavano, told CNN that the transfers in 2018 were made in accordance with the regulations and those agreed by the Supreme Court.
"The transfers were made to fill vacancies, and, later, the judges themselves asked the Council of the Magistracy (the body that controls the magistrates) to stay in those courts permanently."
The former official said that “the Council established in 2018 that the definitive transfers complied with the regulations.
Then he consulted the Executive and the latter consulted the Supreme Court ”.
The highest court then responded to the Executive that these transfers did not need the approval of the Senate, since they were federal charges.
“If they had been transferred from national to federal courts, then, according to the Court, they should have passed through the Senate.
These are not the cases.
The three judges were already federal magistrates and already have an agreement from the Senate, which at the time intervened in their appointments, ”added Garavano.
The current ruling party senators based their decision on the fact that the transfers arranged in 2018 for these three judges, who until then were serving in other courts, did not obtain the agreement of the Senate, as according to them the Constitution.
For their part, the magistrates defend their transfers, based on the approval of the Supreme Court of Justice at the time.
Therefore, they asked the highest court to decide urgently on the ruling of the ruling party, as confirmed to CNN by the judges themselves.
In 2018, Bruglia and Bertuzzi held vacant positions in the Federal Chamber of the city of Buenos Aires and, since then, they have carried out the function of reviewing the investigations of the first instance judges.
In the last two years, among the cases they have reviewed, the majority have confirmed the prosecutions of Vice President Fernández de Kirchner in cases such as the so-called "notebooks of corruption" in public works, as stated in the resolutions of the Federal Chamber .
In Castelli's case, his current role places him in a position that would lead him, in the future, to evaluate the so-called cause of the "corruption notebooks" in an oral and public trial, since the file was assigned to the court that he integrates.
The decision of the Senate is that the three judges must return to their original courts, according to the unanimous vote of the ruling Frente de Todos.
The opposition interblocks of Together for Change and the Federal Parliament decided to withdraw from the session.
Senator Martín Lousteau, who represents the city of Buenos Aires, said: “The agenda for this special session is clearly not the agenda of the people (…) today's agenda is to set aside three judges who hear cases where they are involved the vice president of the Nation and the president of this body ”.
The agenda for today's session is not that of the people, nor of the national government, nor of Argentina, it is that of the President of the body.
There are inherited and generated problems in the economy, uncertainty, a health emergency.
We proposed laws for that and they are not covered.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/aqMu3viMrd
- Martín Lousteau (@GugaLusto) September 16, 2020
After the vote, Judge Castelli returned to appear before the Supreme Court to demand that the court be issued with "urgency" and prevent the magistrates from being transferred from their current positions, he told Todo Noticias (TN) channel.
The Supreme Court ruled that the court will analyze the situation of the judges, but rejected an urgent treatment of the issue and did not provide a date, according to a virtual agreement reproduced by the state news agency, Télam.
The president of the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee, María de los Ángeles Sacnun (Frente de Todos), told Radio 10 on Thursday that "no judge has been removed, nor has their position been removed."
Sacnun argued that the rejection of the previous transfer of the chambermaids is due to the fact that that decision, taken during the previous government, "was produced by an autonomous decree of Mauricio Macri, without the essential agreement of the Senate having been granted," according to the statements that was reproduced by Télam.
«The president makes the decision of a transfer and sends the statement to the Senate so that it approves or not the agreement;
It is a process that defines the Constitution, since, if not, it would be entirely up to the President of the Nation to choose within that list which judge will occupy a place, "he explained.
The decision aroused criticism from the Association of Magistrates and Officials of the National Justice, which represents a large part of the country's judges.
In a statement, the group stated that “in the event that the Executive Power of the Nation evaluates considering the possibility of implementation or instrumentation of any decision related to the transfer of said magistrates, it would be reasonable to aspire that it act with the prudence and measure that the question demands ”.
In addition, the association made known its "concern, derived from the unprecedented situation generated as a result of the rejection of documents from federal judges."
According to the presidential decree of this Thursday, in the case of Bertuzzi, one of the judges transferred to his original position, President Fernández left the transfer of the magistrate "without effect" during the macrismo and also a decree of 2010, issued during the first presidency of Fernández de Kirchner, who had previously transferred the magistrate from his original position.
On that occasion, Bertuzzi went from a federal court in the province of Buenos Aires to another in the city of Buenos Aires.
Already in 2018, it passed to a court of the Federal Chamber.
These three cases are not the only ones under analysis by the ruling party.
According to Senator Sacnun, these chambermaids "disregarded the Constitution, refused the Senate and did not appear," after the Council of the Magistracy found ten cases of judges who were transferred without the agreement of the Upper House, seven of which concurred. to Congress.
"If those three judges had come forward, we should have heard what they answered to the questions," Sacnun said.
"The power that the Senate has is to agree or not, and the public session that is held is for the purpose of being able to listen to those judges, to take a position on the matter," he said.
Castelli, Bruglia and Bertuzzi did not appear at the hearing called in the Senate to discuss their transfers, and they maintain that these were carried out in accordance with the law, and endorsed by the Supreme Court.
The official agency Télam reported that the resolution will be notified to the Council of the Magistracy, the body of the Judiciary in charge of selecting and proposing the appointment of judges, as well as opening procedures for the removal of magistrates.
In this last condition, it could ask the Federal Chamber of Cassation to notify the three magistrates of the cessation of their deputies in their current positions, and their return to the positions they previously held.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner