Lucia Salinas
10/06/2020 - 15:15
Clarín.com
Politics
While Carlos Zannini as Treasury Attorney General
can save Cristina Kirchner from a multi-million dollar lawsuit
, the Supreme Court of Justice, with which Kirchnerism was openly confronted last week, must make an important decision regarding that claim.
At stake there is an
alleged damage against the State of 22,500 million pesos,
which according to the previous administration of Vialidad Nacional is the damage that was caused by
the works that Lázaro Báez left unfinished "but which he charged with average surcharges of 65%
.
"
The vice president filed a complaint with the Court, because she wants that claim to be dealt with in the framework of the criminal trial against her, which is advancing in the Federal Oral Court 2.
The figure is multimillionaire and the Government of the previous administration considered that Cristina Kirchner and the other defendants for the alleged directing of the road public works in favor of the businessman K are collectively responsible.
They are required
to face a compensation to the State of 22,500 million pesos with their respective assets.
The claim stems from the file by which the vice president is judged as head of an illicit association, which, according to the accusation, defrauded the State by directing road contracts in favor of Lázaro Báez: they gave the partner and friend K contracts for 46,000 million pesos to carry out 51 tenders, which they did not control later.
These maneuvers, understood the previous Government, caused "financial damage" to the State, and for this reason, in addition to the criminal trial in federal justice, Vialidad filed a civil lawsuit demanding that the defendants recover 22,500 million pesos.
The figure is not random: the previous management set it as a result of a technical report from the Highway Administration.
As explained to
Clarín
at the time
, this sum is reached by subtracting the money invested in favor of the Austral Group (46,000 million) for the works not completed (24 in total), the years that were budgeted, the damage caused by the delays and the administrative costs, among other aspects.
As the Court that judges the vice president decided that during the trial the lawsuit should not be included, Vialidad -under macro-level management- filed the claim in the contentious administrative jurisdiction.
There were crossed appeals between Vialidad and the defense of Cristina Kirchner, and that is why
now the Supreme Court must resolve the jurisdiction.
That is to say: where will this claim for a multimillion dollar figure advance, if within the criminal trial or in civil justice.
Why was TOF 2 declared incompetent?
Because it considered that the type of claim
corresponds to be dealt with in the Civil jurisdiction
,
as it is a claim for damages
.
But his reasoning is not unanimous: TOF 3, which judges Cristóbal López for not paying the treasury 8,000 million pesos through his firm Oil Combustibles,
agreed to incorporate a civil lawsuit against the businessman into the trial.
In other words, the criteria are not always the same.
In the case of the trial against the vice president, to speed up the procedural deadlines, Vialidad withdrew from the claim in the criminal jurisdiction and went directly to the administrative litigation, where the issues involving the State are settled.
The lawsuit was filed last year in the National Prosecutor's Office 6, in charge of Miguel Ángel Guilligan.
But Cristina Kirchner was in complaint and her claim reached the Court, because she insists that this claim should not be dealt with in that jurisdiction.
Thus, in the midst of Kirchnerism's confrontation with the Highest Court in the case of judges Bruglia, Bertuzzi and Castelli, the request for impeachment against the head of the Court Carlos Rosenkrantz and the analysis that the government advisory commission made up of the lawyer of Cristina -Carlos Beraldi- is doing about the work and the integration of that court, on the fourth floor of the Palace of Courts they have in their hands a key decision to know where it will be claimed that Cristina and the other defendants must compensate the State for damages and damages.
But there is a fact that is not minor: if the case is processed in the contentious administrative jurisdiction, it
can end up being something also favorable for the vice.
In addition to the peculiarity that a State body has a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the current vice president, the other fact to consider is that
the head of the National Highway lawyers is the Treasury Attorney
, that is, Zannini, a man of absolute confidence of Cristina and computed with her in the case for the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran.
Both are accused of covering up for the Iranians responsible for blowing up the AMIA.
As a Treasury Attorney, Zannini has at least three avenues to bring down demand. Through a resolution of the current management of Roads, requesting
that the claim against the vice president be dismissed
, that the "actor" -that is to say who denounced- without desisting from the action does not promote it and can dictate the expiration of the instance, or directly that Zannini is present in the case and expressly requires it.
