Claudio Savoia
11/08/2020 18:05
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/08/2020 18:05
The same week in which the ruling on judges Leopoldo Bruglia and Pablo Bertuzzi converting their respective transfers to the Federal Chamber as interim were disconcerted, the Supreme Court of Justice signed another sentence that would imply a loud slam on the face of Cristina Kichner and her claims to stop - and then annul - the oral trial against him for the alleged directing of the public road works towards the companies of his partner Lázaro Báez.
It would be
bad news for the vice president
if the judges of the Court kept with her what they just signed regarding her former minister Julio De Vido, and did not erase it with the elbow like that remote text of Agreed 7 of 2018 that unconditionally confirmed to the judges that he now left on the tightrope.
Let's see.
On Thursday, the highest court rejected two complaints from De Vido in the process against him for the purchase of junk trains from Spain and Portugal between 2004 and 2012. The former head of Federal Planning had asked the Federal Oral Court 6 -a charge of the oral trial - that the current president Alberto Fernández and former ambassador K in Spain Carlos Bettini, among others, be summoned as witnesses in the hearings.
He also
wanted new and complex technical expertise to be carried out on the contracts
in which the investigating judge Julián Ercolini discovered
overpricing of 171% on purchases of 102 million euros.
The TOF 6, composed of judges Julio Panelo, José Martínez Sobrino and Fernando Canero, rejected both requests, and others with which the former minister - through his lawyers
Maximiliano Rusconi and Gabriel Palmeiro
- tried to delay and hinder the trial, which finally began on March 11, 2019 with 26 defendants;
Among them De Vido, the former Secretary of Transportation Ricardo Jaime, his daughter Julieta Jaime and his alleged former front man, Manuel Vázquez, among others.
But De Vido insisted before the Federal Court of Cassation, which also rejected those claims as
"overabundant
.
"
The former minister asked to reach the Court through an extraordinary appeal, which was also denied.
Then he reached the highest court "in complaint", with the hope that its judges would make room for the new expertise sought and thus stop the trial: an indispensable step to later demand its annulment.
With the signatures of Ricardo Lorenzetti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Horacio Rosatti and Elena Highton - Juan Carlos Maqueda excused himself from voting because
Ricardo Jaime was his former deputy minister
when he headed the Córdoba Education portfolio in 1999 - the Court reiterated those denials.
Although it sounds elementary, the highest court reiterated that
the evidentiary measures do not constitute a
final
sentence
against which its door can be knocked for review.
To something else.
The news would be just an anecdote if De Vido's request was not
exactly the same as the one Cristina made to the Court
in the framework of the trial against him for the National Highway contracts with Lázaro Báez, which are being tried by the Federal Oral Court 2.
The vice president
was about to ensure that this trial does not begin in May of last year,
claiming that the Court had several pending requests from her whose response was key to her defense - according to her vision, to demonstrate that the entire process was a hoax mounted to chase her.
The scandal caused by the sudden request for the file by the highest court two days before the start of the trial froze this maneuver, which was coordinated with some courtiers.
The hearings began, but those requests are still pending response.
The most important of them
is the twin of the one who has just obtained a refusal for De Vido
: far from the object of the case for which she is accused, Cristina demands
that a general assessment be made on all public works
contracted during her presidencies and that of her late husband.
The Court followed its historical criterion: e
sos procedural claims are not its concern.
There is, then, no crack that can be opened for Cristina.
To create it, its ministers would have to do another pirouette like the one they drew with respect to judges Bruglia and Bertuzzi.
Record it in the minutes.