While the tragedy of Rosario grows in the face of the drug advance,
the president of the Court Horacio Rosatti held an institutional dialogue on Friday with the powerful Chief of Staff, Nicolás Posse,
to seek support in order to implement the new criminal adversarial system in Rosario.
This is
the best judicial tool
to fight against drug trafficking thanks to the
saturation operation
ordered by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, after the murders of innocent people executed by drug traffickers to create terror.
From the last dialogues that took place this week on behalf of the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, with Rosatti or the Attorney General of the Nation, Eduardo Casal, chambermaids and other members of the Court, it was evident that in order for the new attempt to expedite the trials against drug traffickers
do not fail, new budget allocations will be needed to finance the new system.
In a context, where the Government repeats that "there is no money."
During the week, the Minister of Justice
had a disagreement with Casal
after receiving a letter in which he explained the material needs to implement the new code.
Cúneo Libarona replied to Casal: “
The attorney is far away, in Panama.
Rosario burns and we have to act
. ”
In reality, Casal was in Buenos Aires.
Rosatti
traveled by car in the rain to Rosario on Thursday to put himself in direct contact with the judges of the Federal Chamber of that city.
After having these multiple conversations, Cúneo
postponed
until May 6 the start of the adversarial system in the dangerous Rosario judicial district that covers the entire province and even reaches San Nicolás, in the north of the province of Buenos Aires.
Sources from the Libertad Avanza Government stated that “it was not a setback by Cúneo, but rather that the minister set, in principle, a date that was impossible to meet
on purpose so that all the players in the judicial system could move
.”
The president of the Court agreed with his Government interlocutors to send
a technical team from the highest court and the Council of the Judiciary on Tuesday
to take note of the needs of the judges in the face of the challenge and
create a Judicial Office in Rosario
to be in charge of all these infrastructure problems.
Upon returning, Rosatti already assigned 16 contracts to that office.
For its part, the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation under the Presidency of Mariano Borinsky is working in coordination with the Court to implement the so-called Accusatory Code in Rosario and then other judicial districts.
However, in
a confidential report
from the Attorney General's Office, to which
Clarín
had exclusive access, the need for
a new building, computers, experts, supplies and security for the prosecutors and their teams
who will investigate, from on May 6, the complex cases of drug trafficking and organized crime.
The greatest resistance to the deadline comes from the Attorney General's Office because the greatest number of tasks, according to the new Criminal Procedure Code,
will fall on prosecutors
.
Starting May 6,
there will be a Copernican change in the Santa Fe justice system
.
There will be no more investigative, chamber or oral trial prosecutors, but instead
prosecutors per case.
And that prosecutor will follow the case
throughout the process
, which may not last more than 3 or 4 years.
Most stages of the processes will be oral and not in writing, according to the new code.
And the investigations will be carried out by prosecutors, not by judges as is the case until now, to try to
put an end to the “revolving door” that allows drug traffickers to quickly escape from detention
.
The report of the Attorney General of the Nation on the needs of prosecutors in Rosario to implement the new Criminal Procedure Code.
Casal created, last year,
a Special Strategic Unit for the Implementation of the Accusatory Criminal Procedure System (UNISA
) that made a diagnosis of the situation of federal justice in Santa Fe in the face of the crisis caused by the increase in drug trafficking, with its new phase of killing civilians to create terror and that is why Bullrich speaks of “narcoterrorism.”
Last year, after the shooting attacks on Messi's family, Congress, unanimously,
sanctioned the Law to Strengthen Federal Criminal Justice in the Province of Santa Fe (Law 27,715) that created more positions of judges and prosecutors.
All with a view to being able to put into effect the new National Criminal Procedure Code sanctioned in 2014 and which, until now,
was only applied in Salta and Jujuy.
The Strengthening Law provided for the creation
of 27 positions of Federal Criminal Prosecutor with jurisdiction in the Rosario federal district
, distributed as follows: 15 with seats in Rosario, 7 in Santa Fe, 1 in each of the cities of Rafaela, Reconquista, San Lorenzo and Venado Tuerto and another based in San Nicolás, province of Buenos Aires.
The Rosario judicial jurisdiction covers
a total population of more than 3,900,000 inhabitants in an area of 139,962 km².
Thus, the Rosario district has a total of 41 prosecutor positions, 27 of which are positions of Federal Criminal Prosecutors created in art.
3rd of the Strengthening Law.
In the Rosario district (with Reconquista included) there are already 241 agents working, 19% more than in 2022.
But the situation of the Public Prosecutor's Office to confront the new paradigm of the Procedural Code "
is currently critical
and requires urgently addressing long-term sustainable solutions that guarantee that, once the new Procedural Code is implemented, the organization is in a position to fulfill his
new role as exclusive director of federal criminal investigations
,” says the UNISA report.
Bukele-style searches in Santa Fe prisons in El Salvador that are believed to have led to attacks on civilians.
One of the priorities of the Attorney General's Office is the acquisition of “
adequate building infrastructure and material and technical resources
that allow carrying out chemical expertise, obtaining forensic data on mobile and storage devices, acquisition, preservation and forensic analysis of images, audio and video, processing.”
Also, equipment for the
“analysis of large volumes of data,
accounting analysis, among other critical forensic practices that act as support in the investigation of complex crimes and organized crime.”
Paradoxically, the Federal Justice Department has
698 employees in the Rosario district, while the prosecutor's offices only have 241 and now the greatest task will fall to the latter.
The current building situation of the headquarters where the federal prosecutor's offices operate, "in addition to
being deficient in terms of space and structure
, presents a design consistent with the mixed procedural system (for the old Procedural Code)."
“This is inconvenient to achieve the standards of efficiency in criminal investigation and litigation typical of an adversarial system,” the report warns.
That is,
a central building is needed for prosecutors where the accused, family members, witnesses and experts will now attend.
This “project will require considerable time for the definitive installation of the Public Ministry offices,” the report adds.
The Attorney General's Office has already called
for a Public Tender for the location of a property in the city of Rosario
, to be used for the operation of a Unified Headquarters of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Nation.
There is already a preselected building.
The property must approximately consist of a useful covered area of between 3,500 and 4,200 square meters, essential for adequate work spaces that house at least
“a floor of 176 agents
.”
In addition, an agreement was signed between the Attorney General's Office and the Municipality of Rosario.
Mayor Pablo Javkin, in turn, gave up
a property to install a branch of the Economic Crime and Money Laundering Prosecutor's Office (PROCELAC) and the Narcocriminal Prosecutor's Office (PROCUNAR)
directed by Diego Iglesias, another of the participants in these telephone consultations. .
Another problem
is the creation of new prisons
.
In the Rosario jurisdiction “there were
1,149 people deprived of liberty
at the disposal of the federal courts” until December 2023. Of them,
47% are serving prison sentences.
But Santa Fe is one of the few provinces
without Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) establishments
to meet the needs of federal justice.
During the period 2019-2023, the largest cases are: drug crime (4,745), economic crime (241) and cases linked to common crimes (8,943).
That is, crimes related to drug crime increased by 6% during 2023, while those related to
economic crime increased by 83% during the same period compared to 2022
.
The Government of Javier Milei promised
to send personnel to the Rosario branch of the Financial Information Unit (UIF)
to help detect financiers, accountants and lawyers who launder drug traffickers' money and generally evade Justice.
The anti-laundering agency created in Rosario after the reform of a decree by the Government of former President Alberto Fernández
“was a useless shell
and the activity of the UIF at that time,
responding to judicial requirements or providing intelligence, was very poor
,” stated the former vice president of the UIF of Mauricio Macri, María Eugenia Talerico.
Another need is the implementation of
forensic laboratories
that “can, particularly and without prejudice to other services (ballistic, environmental), carry out chemical expertise on narcotic substances and analyze data collection on fixed or mobile devices,” highlights the report. the Procuratorate.
As far as the current Computer Laboratory is concerned, it only has a data extraction work capacity of
up to five cell phones per day and up to two computers or similar per day
.
One of Rosario's prosecutors told
Clarín
that there are few UDEF devices to open cell phones and this situation "produces
a funnel
" and delays investigations into drug gangs, which are increasingly faster and more versatile.
In addition, most of Rosario's judges and prosecutors so far
do not have custody
.
The Attorney General's Office offered them custody and now it will be the Ministry of Security that will have to provide police officers to guarantee the lives of those who investigate complex cases.
Unlike the Comodoro Py courts, those in Rosario
are always fenced and staffed by police wearing bulletproof vests and armed to the teeth.
The building needs of prosecutors in Rosario according to the Attorney General's report.
Rosatti is more confident than Casal in the face of this 45-day challenge and the Government's promise to provide funds.
And he is betting on a “contagion effect” to try to bring, after the Rosario experience,
the accusatory system to Mendoza.