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The Cassation and the Notebooks: one sentence, many messages

2020-12-01T05:30:45.994Z


The chambermaids Barroetaveña and Petrone undid, one by one, the arguments that fed the theory of lawfare in this and other cases.


Claudio Savoia

11/30/2020 7:23 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Politics

Updated 11/30/2020 7:25 PM

The so-called Law of the Repentant is perfectly compatible with the investigation of corruption cases, and

was correctly used by the prosecutor Carlos Stornelli and Judge Claudio Bonadio

in the case of the Bribery Notebooks, as the Buenos Aires Federal Chamber had already ruled.

Point.

Those forceful statements, developed in a 200-page ruling by Chamber I of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation, raised

a heavy concrete wall in front of the dizzying outpost of Cristina Kirchner,

her former officials and state contractors accused of corruption.

Turning the Law of the Repentant was an essential step

in the judicial strategy of that

blitzkrieg

.

But much more for his equally fundamental story.

The bricks of the wall that stop the "Cuadernos" arm of the judicial offensive K placed, one by one and with bureaucratic neatness, the chambermaid

Diego Barroetaveña.

In his vote, whose backbone his colleague

Daniel Petron

adhered to

to form the majority, he rejected the claims of Julio De Vido and the former head of the UIA

Juan Carlos Lascurain

to annul the confessions of the 31 repentants in the cause, but also He argued at length the reasons why the law that allowed those statements is perfectly valid.

Let's look at a few sections of Judge Barroetaveña's text: "the defendant chooses to submit voluntarily to that institute -that of the defendant collaborator-,

assuming responsibilities and

important

consequences

that could harm him and, according to the legal reality, he does so in exchange for a benefit in terms of penalty reduction ".

In Creole: not only do you not harm yourself by doing so - unless you lie - but by collaborating with the courts you are guaranteed to

obtain some benefit

when the Oral Court fixes your sentence.

"All the accused are offered the possibility of repentance, but

no one is obliged to do so

. Whoever chooses in this sense does so as a result of

a free and voluntary decision

in exchange for future benefit."

Very clear.

In this regard, Barroetaveña explains to the defendants that they came to the Cassation with the hope of annulling a key tool of the case and

causing an earthquake in the file

that moves away - and eventually cancels - the realization of the trial, which in their claims "should demonstrate, in a concrete and specific way, in what way the norm whose unconstitutionality they allege violates guarantees and rights recognized by the Magna Carta. "

In other words: a file is not a political platform, and requests before the courts

must be specific

and evidently linked to the case in which it is litigated. 

In another key paragraph, the chambermaid reflects the mentions and recommendations of the

United Nations Convention against Corruption

regarding the convenience of enacting laws that encourage the repentant.

This instrument, to which Argentina adhered,

has constitutional rank

in our country.

"Anyone who does not have relevant information for the purposes of the law will not be able to enter the category -of repentant- for not meeting such objective collection, which, we insist, is

not capricious or discriminatory,"

explains Barroetaveña.

And attention: "if ultimately the criticism is that it does not agree with the objective criteria that base the category 'repentant', because not all the defendants have information to contribute,

this does not go beyond their personal dissent

but does not acquire sufficient status to establish themselves as a constitutional objection. "

A lock.

Neither do the attempts to link the use of the Repentant Law with alleged violations of the right to defense, or of the constitutional guarantee of being tried by incontestable evidence, do not resist analysis.

These two arguments are basal in the legal and rhetorical strategy of Kirchnerism

, both in the Cuadernos case and in the rest of its numerous corruption cases against Cristina and her former officials.

The blow to that house of cards is especially hard.

"The validity of confessions obtained in an illegitimate way under torture - typical of the inquisitorial system - neither in a forced manner, nor by security forces personnel is not discussed here without the accused having knowledge of his rights," Barroetaveña wrote, listing the comparisons favorites of the theologians of

lawfare

, "but we are before a clearly regulated institute in which the accused, with full knowledge of the fact attributed to him, legal assistance and in full exercise of his rights -among which is silence- decides declare and contribute useful information to the investigation that involves him and other people, who must necessarily have a responsibility equal to or greater than that of him. "

Goodbye to the story.

And the lack of filming of the confessions, which De Vido's defenders and other defendants who later bowed to him denounced as evidence of the black pressure to confess?

"The precautions for the registration are intended to

guarantee 'its subsequent evaluation'

as indicated in the text of the rule itself, so that if the means used in the case makes this examination possible,

there would, in principle, no violation of the right of defense

and the power to control that test, "Barroetaveña responds.

The certificate signed by the repentant and his lawyer, then, is sufficient.

To this plot building, the chambermaid Daniel Petrone added another key element, which had already been taken into account by Bonadio during the investigation and the Federal Chamber during the evaluation of that work:

confessions should not be the only evidence invoked for a resolution judicial

.

And in this case they are not.

The ruling, full of messages with multiple recipients - the defendants, prosecutors at all levels, the Court, the legislators who voted for the law, political power and public opinion - contains another gem that is worth rescuing lost in its pages .

It is the quote from the jurist and philosopher of Law

Carlos Nino

, which Barroetaveña mentions in his vote: “it tends to cause horror in our society, accustomed to prioritizing a morality of friendship - in which denunciation is the worst sin - over public morals.

I do not see such a bad

attack against a Sicilian morality of complicity in favor of a civic morality


Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-12-01

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