In the midst of the weakness of the ruling party to enforce that the witnesses it summons appear to testify before the impeachment commission, Deputies resumed this Tuesday the prosecution
process
initiated against the members of the
Supreme Court
of Justice with the presence of the Mauricio Macri's former Justice Minister, Germán Garavano, and a group of journalists, including Ignacio Miri, from
Clarín
.
Miri was quoted by the note he wrote informing that Judge Highton will continue on the Supreme Court after turning 75 in February 2017. After asking him if he ratified his text, he opened the way to questions from legislators.
The only ones to ask questions were
camper Rodolfo Tailhade and Juan Manuel Pedrini, also a pro-government member
.
They first asked him when he found out that Highton would remain in office and why he published.
"I had information that this decision (of the Government), not to appeal the ruling, had already been taken and it seemed pertinent to write it down. It was of public interest," the journalist replied.
They also asked him if he was aware that Mauricio Macri had participated in the government's decision not to appeal to prevent Highton from remaining in court despite his age.
"It is a decision that falls to the Executive, which is one-person. It seems natural to me," said the journalist.
When Tailhade asked him which judges he had requested interviews with and talked to, the Civic Coalition deputy, Juan López intervened.
"The witness is a journalist. There are questions that are borderline in relation to the disclosure of the source, he is answering naturally, and he has the right, but he is asked who he spoke with and they are not questions that concern us, we must ask more about the facts and less with whom he spoke," said López.
"I know the article of the constitution that protects me, I am talking about an interview with Rosenkrantz that was published in the
Clarín
newspaper , I have no reason not to respond," added Miri.
The witnesses were summoned for the hearing this Tuesday
in the framework of the investigation of the cause of the 2×1 ruling, issued by the Supreme Court of Justice in 2017
, which benefited the repressor Luis Muiña.
The theory of the ruling party is that Highton de Nolasco accompanied Horacio Rosatti and Carlos Rosenkrantz, with the vote in favor.
According to the position of Kirchnerism,
the former judge received the approval of the Macri government to continue occupying her seat in the highest court
after December 7, when she turned 75, the age limit to integrate the Court according to the constitutional reform of 1994.
Before the commission, former Justice Minister
Germán Garavano
clarified before testifying that for many of the facts that were addressed by the commission he has been
"falsely denounced in criminal courts
."
"This creates a problem and puts me in a difficult situation when it comes to testifying," he added.
In principle, the former Justice Minister assured during the hearing that he "
never" spoke to Highton de Nolasco about the Muiña case
.
"The talks, which were not so many, were for the reform of the justice system," he explained about the meetings with the former judge.
Faced with the officialism's offensive, Garavano said he did not know if there was an interest of the Macri government in keeping the now former judge as a member of the Court.
In this sense, he explained that they did not appeal the ruling that benefited Highton de Nolasco because the "Fayt and Petracchi doctrines" on the subject were respected.
He also responded "not remembering" having spoken with Senator José Torello or with Fabián "Pepín" Rodríguez Simón, designated as Macri's legal advisers, during his administration about the continuity of the former judge.
After his presentation before the commission, Garavano expressed that "this impeachment does not contribute anything."
"We are watching to see how we attack an institution that is one of the basic institutions of democracy. The role of the Court is to put a brake on the other two powers," he stated.
He also affirmed that "
the Muiña ruling did not correspond", "just as the 2x1 does not correspond in crimes where there were rapes or murders
".
"It is a norm that I always criticized. That is why this situation hurts me more," she stressed.
Garavano made reference to what was stated by the Kirchnerist Leopoldo Moreau about the use of preventive prisons during Macri's administration and pointed out that these procedural measures "do not happen during governments, they are decided by the judges. If we could not say that the sentence of Cristina Kirchner It's this government's fault."
For the ex-minister, what was done by the commission of Deputies "does not follow the due process as established by the Constitution and questions about anything."
"The Court is not interested in impeachment but in making a political circus and that generates a lot of concern. We have serious judges and we have to create an independent Judiciary
," he concluded.
Estela de Carlotto: "The Muiña ruling exposed a deep cynicism of the Court"
As part of the process to impeach the four members of the Supreme Court, which began last February during the extraordinary sessions, the head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, also declared, who began the debate by reading a document.
In his presentation, Carlotto said that the resolution of the highest court opened the door to freedom for the genocidal.
"The ruling exposed
a deep cynicism
on the part of Rosatti, Rosenkrantz and Highton," said the representative of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who clarified at the closing of the document that she was not going to answer questions.
The list of witnesses called by the commission was completed with the journalists Irina Hauser, Luciana Bertoia, Martín Granovsky, Silvana Boschi and Ignacio Miri.
At first, they had also asked to summon Jorge Lanata, but finally Kirchnerism decided to back down with that idea.
In this case, the journalists were summoned at the proposal of the FdT, so that they ratify what was expressed in newspaper articles about the sequence that preceded the "Muiña ruling."
In this way, the ruling party seeks to regain prominence in the process initiated against Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Ricardo Lorenzetti, based on a maneuver promoted by the national government with the support of a group of Peronist governors.
But, strictly speaking, Kirchnerism has shown some weakness during the process because it still could not enforce that prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, who was summoned twice and proposed to testify in writing, testify.
The president of the commission, Carolina Gaillard (FdT - Entre Ríos) had first stated that he could be taken by the police and then requested sanctions through the interim Attorney General, Eduardo Casal.
The ruling party was also unable to get Senator José Torello to testify before the commission, who at the time argued that the Chamber of Deputies "lacks competence" to summon him for questioning due to his status as a senator.
"I do not endorse or admit any interrogation that undermines my immunity," the legislator completed in a letter sent to the presidency of the commission.
Neither did the former judicial operator Fabián "Pepín" Rodríguez Simón, who has an extradition request pending to Argentina, nor the lawyer Jorge Mazzeo, who never responded to the requests, respond to the summons.
Meanwhile, María Roteta, the prosecutor in the case of the Robles and D'Alessandro chats processed by Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla, asked that her summons be rescheduled but it was never confirmed.
On January 26, the Chamber of Deputies opened the debate in committee on the 14 projects that proposed the impeachment of the members of the Supreme Court for different reasons, including having issued the ruling to apply the 2x1 principle to convicted repressors or having resolved for the benefit of the city of Buenos Aires the controversy over the additional co-participating funds that former President Mauricio Macri redirected to the Buenos Aires district in 2016.
The process began on February 9 with the admissibility of the files being processed against the members of the Supreme Court, after the FdT managed to impose its majority to approve in the commission the opening of the summary and the accumulation of evidence that support the accusation against Rosatti, Rosenkrantz, Maqueda and Lorenzetti.
Meanwhile, a march to the courts was called for next Thursday - at the intersection of Talcahuano and Lavalle streets, in this capital - under the slogan "Democracy or judicial mafia" and in rejection of the "proscription" of Cristina Kirchner.
Strong cross between a deputy and an ultra K: "Go to the psychologist if you are perplexed"
One of the most tense moments of the hearing this Tuesday in which Germán Garavano appeared occurred when an ultra-K deputy intimidated the former Justice Minister to answer whether the decision to appoint Horacio Rosatti and Carlos Rosenkrantz by decree was imposed by advisor Fabián "Pepín" Rodríguez Simón.
On a recurring and repeated basis, the deputy Rodolfo Tailhade asked the former minister what his relationship was with Rodríguez Simón, if he knew him, if he had seen him at the Casa Rosada during the government of Mauricio Macri, if they spoke.
Faced with this, Garavano replied that he knew the government's judicial adviser, that they had spoken a few times and that he was in a relationship.
"You never talked about the issue of the Court with Pepín?" Tailhade, one of the judicial and intelligence operators in Cristina Kirchner's entourage, inquired with a questioning tone.
The question provoked the reaction of the opposition and the deputy of the Civic Coalition Mónica Frade came out with the tip caps due to the pressure to which the witness was being subjected.
"The deputy appears perplexed and because he is perplexed he begins to attack a response from the witness," the legislator started.
"Go to the psychologist if you are perplexed," said the legislator, to which she added: "This is not the area, the witness finishes testifying and we like it or we like it, it is the witness's response. It cannot be allowed to be controversial ".
Kirchnerism gathers evidence for irregularities in the social work of the Judiciary
During the hearing on Tuesday, the ruling party also managed to approve an extension of the evidence on the alleged irregularities detected in the social work of the Judiciary, one of the grounds included in the process initiated before the Court.
Specifically, ultra K Rodolfo Tailhade requested that the note signed by Ricardo Lorenzetti, published in the Judicial Information Center on April 4, 2023, be added to the file.
"It refers to the response of the board of directors of the social work to a transfer that the court had issued regarding various irregularities noted in the audit report that was commissioned in a timely manner from the Court," he said.
For her part, the national deputy Vanesa Siley (FdT) requested the summons to testimonial statement of Aldo Tonón, who was director of the social work of the Judiciary.
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