The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and a group of Peronist governors meet at the Casa Rosada in rejection of a Supreme Court ruling that benefits the city of Buenos Aires, on December 22, 2022.ESTEBAN COLLAZO
The Argentine government will ask Congress to initiate the impeachment trial against the president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti, "so that his conduct in the performance of his duties may be investigated."
The decision represents a strong counterattack to the judicial ruling that obliges the Executive to increase the funds it delivers to the city of Buenos Aires, the richest district in the country and governed by the opposition.
The pro-government Frente de Todos coalition will also request that the other three members of the highest court be investigated, as confirmed on Tuesday by the president, Alberto Fernández, after obtaining the support of 12 of the 23 governors.
Fernandez met this afternoon with eight Peronist governors at the Casa Rosada to finalize the strategy.
The ruling party does not have enough votes in Parliament to carry out the impeachment trial, but it intends to wear down the judges in a maneuver that further strains the relationship between the Executive and the Judiciary and extremes the polarization of Argentine society at the beginning of a year marked by the presidential elections in October.
The war between both powers of the state was about to unleash a serious institutional conflict ten days ago, when Fernández, with the support of 14 provincial governors, threatened to reject the Court's ruling that obliges him to hand over to the city of Buenos Aires Aires 2.95% of the total collected in federal co-participation taxes.
In 2016, President Mauricio Macri increased by decree the items received by the capital from 1.40% to 3.75%, a valuable help for Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, his political dolphin.
In 2020, Fernández reduced it to 2.20% and Rodríguez Larreta denounced it before the Justice.
The Supreme Court, the last instance, ordered that they should be increased to 2.95%.
The ruling is final, but Peronism rejects it considering that it means delivering some 180 to the capital.
Fernández, who is a professor of criminal law, justified the request for impeachment by the "unusual jurisprudential interpretations that allow the Judiciary to meddle in the decisions of the National Congress."
"It is my duty to promote actions when the federal system is put in crisis through an unnecessary precautionary measure and the improper proposal of an autonomous city," he anticipated on Sunday through a statement.
At the end of the meeting held this Tuesday between Fernández and the provincial governors, seven of them offered a brief press conference to express their support for the impeachment request.
“It is something that has no precedent in history,” declared the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, in supporting the measure.
"It has to do with the division of powers, the Court has advanced on the Executive and Legislative Powers," added this governor, one of those closest to the vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
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Statements by governors after meeting with President Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) in the Eva Perón Room, Casa Rosada.
https://t.co/xToXGi8Dq4
– Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) January 3, 2023
According to Kicillof, it is expected that tomorrow, Wednesday, the proposal will be raised to the impeachment committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which must decide whether to start the procedure or reject it.
This commission is controlled by the deputies who respond to the Government, so it is expected that the answer will be affirmative.
However, to be approved the impeachment trial requires the votes of two-thirds of both legislative chambers, a special majority that the ruling Frente de Todos does not have and that will prevent it from prospering.
The maneuver is a new chapter in the discredit strategy against the Judiciary headed by Kirchner, who was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption and has four other cases open in court.
Kirchner attacked what he considers a "judicial mafia" that has the Argentine democratic system on the ropes and announced that he will not participate in the 2023 electoral battle. Kirchner will not go to prison because the sentence is not final, an instance that corresponds to the Supreme Court.
The mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, is one of the main pre-candidates for the presidency of the opposition coalition Together for Change.
"I don't know if the objective of the Court is to finance Larreta's campaign, but he is going to achieve it," said the Argentine president in a television interview.
Ten months after the elections, the polls anticipate an opposition victory.
chat leak
One of the arguments of Kirchnerism against Justice are the chats leaked to the press from the hacking of the phone of the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Marcelo D'Alessandro.
If true, they reveal a scandalous collusion between opposition politicians and judges.
In a Telegram group, D'Alessandro was seeking strategies with judges, prosecutors, former intelligence officials and media businessmen to justify a trip supposedly paid for by Grupo Clarín to the ranch of English millionaire Joe Lewis in Patagonia.
In another leaked conversation between D'Alessandro and one of the closest collaborators of the president of the Supreme Court, Silvio Robles, one can read how Robles gives him arguments to try to get a disputed position in the Judicial Council to remain in the hands of the opposition.
D'Alessandro has been denounced before the Justice and this Tuesday he requested a temporary license from the position to defend himself.
The Security Minister of Rodríguez Larreta declares himself the victim of an illegal espionage operation carried out by Kirchnerism with the aim of extorting him and generating an institutional crisis.
For D'Alessandro, the Frente de Todos intends to “cover up the boss”, in reference to the vice president.
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