The Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2) will make public this week
the foundations of the sentence
that condemned Vice President
Cristina Kirchner
, businessman K Lázaro Báez and seven other former officials in the framework of the so-called Road Cause.
Following that ruling, last December, the Vice President announced her resignation from any candidacy while Kirchnerism launched a strong offensive to denounce an alleged attempt to "
outlaw
" its political leader in the upcoming elections.
Once the arguments based on which the former president was found responsible for
acts of corruption are known, the
appeals
instance is opened
and thus, the case will begin to go through an
extensive journey in Justice until it ends in the Supreme Court
as last instance.
On December 6, Cristina Kirchner became
the first vice president in office with a conviction for corruption
.
The TOF 2, made up of judges Jorge Gorini, Andrés Basso and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu, found her
responsible for the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the State
.
The damage caused was estimated at 80,000 million pesos.
The abbreviated grounds that were disclosed then underscored the "certainty" of the Tribunal regarding that "through the processing of 51 public bidding processes for the construction of road works on national and provincial routes in Santa Cruz, between the years 2003 and 2015, it
had place an extraordinary fraudulent maneuver
that harmed the pecuniary interests of the national public administration”.
Road Trial in Comodoro P and Public Works The TOF2 judges will give the foundations of the conviction against Cristina Kirchner this Thursday.
They thus referred to the
51 contracts that were awarded to Grupo Austral, owned by Lázaro Báez
, former business partner of the vice president.
The road works tendered on Santa Cruz soil were "systematically awarded to a group of companies linked" to Báez, said the Court, adding that the formation of his holding and its economic growth was "exponential" and it was seen "directly associated with the assignment of public road works in the area of that jurisdiction”.
In other words, the magistrates indicated that former officials of the national Highway Administration and of the provincial agency, "operated outside the public interest", configuring, "behind an appearance of legality, a synchronized and unequivocal disposition of the state apparatus aimed at the consummation of the crime”.
Based on these initial premises, the Tribunal will announce
the evidence and testimonies on the basis of which they reached said conclusion.
The judges will also explain in their foundations how they considered corroborated a system in which they described former officials as "patronizing with the companies of the Báez group" so that they "would be awarded most of the works."
They were accused of failing to control "sufficiently what was done by the contractors as well as minimally supervising the progress of the works."
In this case, a large number of routes that did not have the progress declared by the company were corroborated, in any case the works certificates were issued.
Another of the aspects related to the role of former officials and on which TOF 2 will deepen, refers to
"preferential treatment for group companies
, providing them with exclusive and privileged collection channels (whether guaranteeing permanent financial advances or through payments advance certificates of work)”.
Together with other examples such as technical and administrative aspects, they will be known this Thursday when the foundations of the sentence are published.
In essence, what the Court exposed when issuing the accusatory sentence, is the "existence of
promiscuous and corrupt links between public administration officials (national and provincial) and the
State contractor companies owned by Lázaro Báez."
These ties, the judges considered, "were decisive for the realization of a fraud in which a fictitious legality predominated to implement processes and administrative decisions that sought to ensure and disguise an illegitimate benefit in favor of at least two of the accused : Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez”.
Among the arguments that support
Cristina's six-year prison sentence
, there will be those that explain how the magistrates Gorini, Giménez Uriburu and Basso agreed that all the defendants in the exercise of the national and provincial public function "violated their duties regarding the management, administration or care of assets, in order to procure undue profit” this caused damage to the State.
The central premise on this aspect is that certain government acts, such as bidding processes, and other measures of the Executive Power, adopted "the appearance of legality" but "were straightened out with the clear purpose of specifying and ensuring the execution of the criminal maneuver ”: direct the works in favor of the Baéz Group.
This operation exposed an "oiled and concerted circuit of irregularities."
And in all this, the Court unanimously indicated, "
there was a manifest interest" of the Vice President for the criminal plan to be executed
.
The
dissidence of the magistrates
was exposed in the main crime that was attributed during the investigation stage to Cristina Kirchner:
the illicit association in the capacity of chief
.
Prosecutor
Diego Luciani,
upon concluding his arguments, found her responsible for this crime, however, only Judge Basso agreed with said criteria.
In the foundations it will be known based on which criteria endorsed the thesis of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
On the other hand, the details will be known on the basis of which
the Court resolved to acquit former Minister of Planning Julio De Vido
of all the accusations against him, something that will also be appealed by prosecutor Luciani who maintains his degree of responsibility and participation in criminal maneuver.
The course of the sentence
Once all the grounds are public, the prosecution and the lawyers will have seven days to appeal the accusatory sentence so that the TOF 2, immediately afterwards, sends everything to the Chamber of Cassation, the highest criminal court.
When the Chamber, which will be the IV that is already intervening in the case, has been established, the parties will be given time to express their agreement or not with that circumstance.
Cristina Kirchner's lawyer will challenge
,
as he already anticipated,
Judge Mariano Borinsky,
whom he denounced for his visits to the Olivos farm during the presidency of
Mauricio Macri
.
Finally, the Cassation must set hearings to hear the expanded arguments of the defenses and the prosecution to then begin to analyze the situation:
whether or not to confirm the accusatory sentence
.
For this there is a period of twenty business days that is always extended when dealing with large-scale causes.
When the case reaches the Court, another clock begins to rule: there are no deadlines for the magistrates to rule on the case.
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