The six fundamentals of the City to challenge Judge Gallardo, who can stop the return to school

02/03/2021 12:23

• Clarín.com

• Cities

Updated 02/03/2021 13:09

The Buenos Aires Government presented this Wednesday the challenge to Judge Roberto Gallardo, who on Tuesday summoned the

Ministers of Health, Fernán Quirós, and of Education, Soledad Acuña

, to explain the protocols provided for the return of face-to-face classes against the coronavirus. 

"It is our responsibility to challenge him in this case because the education of the boys is at stake, especially after a year like 2020, which cannot be repeated. We are working to create the conditions for the boys to have

face-to-face classes safely and taken care of "

, said this afternoon the Buenosairean Chief of Cabinet, Felipe Miguel.

The City presented a letter in which it accuses the magistrate, in front of Court number 2 of the Administrative and Tax Litigation jurisdiction, of "impartiality" and says that it has already made the decision, even before receiving the mentioned ministers.

This afternoon it was learned that the judge withdrew from the case until the Court of Appeals in Administrative and Tax Litigation resolves the request for disqualification.

This Wednesday morning, the Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Fernán Quirós, assured: "As far as I understand, the judge asks what the testing strategy is. We are willing to

explain to the Justice in detail

the technical information, the scientific endorsement and the academic and health reasons why it is correct to make an intensive testing strategy. If the Justice requires information, we will do it as many times as it requires. "

For her part, the Minister of Education, Soledad Acuña, also referred to the summons of Judge Gallardo: "We should ask him what the intention is;

ours is that classes begin and we are going to work in that sense."

"If that implies generating information again to give it to the judge, we will give it to him; if that implies that he summons us to 100 hearings, we will go to 100 hearings. We will do whatever it takes because the priority that is the boys are in the classrooms", considered the official.

It is not the first time that Judge Gallardo has taken action against macrismo.

The comings and goings have their history.

Since the days when Mauricio Macri was head of government.

The list of rulings that generated tension includes a ban on parties and bowling after the Time Warp tragedy in 2016;

the stoppage of works, in Saavedra, of the viaduct plan for the Miter railway;

the suspension and blocking of delivery companies for cell phone applications, and the provision that allowed subway passengers to travel free in stations where the escalators did not work, in 2019.

In the educational field, the judge had made a highly disputed decision in mid-2020 when he tried to force the Buenos Aires government to

distribute computers with Internet to all students

in the framework of the pandemic, a measure that was overruled by a higher court.

Now, the summons to the Buenos Aires ministers was set a week before the date set by Rodríguez Larreta for the start of classes, February 17. 

The arguments

The letter presented by the City also states that only four of the 17 teaching unions are summoned.

And he explains that "they have developed testing procedures for teachers and non-teachers. Next,

the 6 arguments raised by the Buenos Aires government. 

1. The manifest lack of impartiality of Dr. Gallardo, of his bitterness towards the GCBA revealed in innumerable precedents and already outlined, early, in this case.

2. The Judge has demonstrated a manifest departure from the rules of due process, since he expands the object of the process at his discretion, summons officials from essential areas to appear at a hearing with a personal and non-delegable nature and according to journalistic reports that occurred at the time of presentation of the present challenge, it would have already decided to suspend the beginning of classes in the City of Buenos Aires.

3. It is evident that the magistrate has the intention of supplying the activity that corresponds to the litigants, confusing his role as director of the process with that of party, resolving outside of what is required, and in clear opposition to the procedural rules to which it should abide by, violating the constitutional guarantees of the City Government.

4. The sentencing party orders a series of measures (such as discriminatingly summoning some union representatives without any request from the parties), which absolutely exceed their competence and their performance in the process.

And it encourages this party to provide information that exceeds that requested by the plaintiff, "under the warning to resolve with the records of the record," when no transfer has been made to this party, violating the principle of bilaterality.

5. And summons a hearing that was not required by the parties, cites only four of the seventeen teacher unions, namely, Union of Education Workers (UTE Capital), Association of Teachers of Secondary and Higher Education (ADEMyS), Argentine Teachers Union (UDA), and Buenos Aires Educators Union (SEDEBA), without any explanation that justifies their actions, and without even trying to argue why this discrimination.

It also omitted to give a preview to the Fiscal Agent as provided in articles 1 and 4 of Law 6381.

6. The decisions imply a clear excess of the functions of Dr. Gallardo, who is directly selecting the subjects in the proceedings, and orders unsolicited evidence, as if he were a plaintiff, thereby demonstrating the clear intention of the magistrate to use a judicial process to become the executor of a public policy.

The GCBA, in compliance with its functions and competencies, has developed procedures for the testing of teachers and non-teachers, information that will be made available to the Justice at the appropriate time.

In the serious health emergency that humanity and the country and the City in particular are going through, the Government of CABA has always privileged the due balance between the rights of citizens, to life, to health, to education, to freedom, taking care that health measures do not violate human rights of citizens or the best interests of the child.

SC