A week after the government made official the nomination of federal judge Ariel Lijo to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, criticism continues to arise against the magistrate's nomination. After a strong statement from the City Bar Association, its owner, Alberto Garay, was forceful:
“The problem with Lijo is that his background is all bad.”
“The problem that exists with Lijo's nomination is that he is a person who, as a judge, all the background he has, everything that has generated repercussions from his actions, is all bad.
He is someone who has been investigated five times by the Judicial Council
,” Garay remarked in dialogue with
radio Rivadavia.
Garay questioned that whenever Lijo was investigated in the Judiciary it was never thoroughly investigated. “Four of them, one is still pending, were all superficial,
nothing was really found out
. For example, there was a complaint that as a judge he was the owner of a ranch, and since he was a judge he did not have it before, along with his brother, and in that complaint nothing about the ranch was investigated," the lawyer denounced. .
“They did not go to the farm, they did not find out in the Justice Inspection, in the property registry, in whose name the Aras was, how it had been established, with what funds, nothing. The investigations in the Council of the Judiciary that managed Kirchnerism were like this,” said the lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires and Master in Law from Columbia University in New York.
Garay said that another of the complaints against Lijo was due to the
delays
that his court had in processing the files. “Then a criminal complaint was made with that court and the other that there was no explanation as to
why the files were delayed
, why a sentence was not handed down, why the investigation that had to be done was not carried out, why they were not issued. preventive prisons, which is a characteristic that former President Fernández highlighted at the time,
which is that of filing files away
.
Alberto Garay, president of the City Bar Association. Photo Juano Tesone.
"What is done many times, in some Comodoro Py courts, is that the files are delayed, they put them in a drawer, hence the expression that exists today as a word accepted by the Royal Academy, which says that it is a meaning which is used in Argentina to delay files,” he added. “
And there they spend, or live, or spend the dream of what is just, it is not investigated,
unless that person falls into disgrace. When he falls from grace the investigation begins, but if he regains power or prestige, the investigation stops,” Garay questioned.
Yesterday, the Bar Association of the Capital issued a harsh statement against Lijo and in response to the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cuneo Libarona, who in his defense of the controversial magistrate assured that those who question him do not know what they are talking about.
"The Bar Association of the City of Buenos Aires expresses its surprise and disagreement with the comments made by the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, on
the occasion of the rejection that we expressed regarding the nomination of Ariel Lijo
as a candidate for judge of the Court Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in which the Minister alluded to an alleged lack of knowledge or misinformation on the part of our entity to give an opinion on the matter," they launched.
The Bar Association based its rejection of Lijo on the defense of the rule of law, republican values and the independence of Justice. "[Those] principles that would be affected by the appointment of a person who, as a federal judge, has shown signs of behavior that
is not consistent with the essential public trust that those who exercise the judiciary must awaken
."
"The Minister's statements are not only disdainful, but they ignore the content of our statement and how our College has struggled and acted in defense of those values," the statement states.
Garay also stressed that complaints have been made against Lijo for absolutely unjustifiable financial enrichment. “In addition to this, links have been drawn between Lijo and people who are also under criminal investigation, generally linked to organizations or companies that work with the State. So, when one has this trajectory of Lijo, which is what it seems that the minister does not take into account, or minimizes, one says, no, if we are going to appoint a judge to the Supreme Court, he cannot have this background.”
“It cannot have been suspected in such a way, because the Court is the head of the Judicial Branch, and if the head of the Judicial Branch fails, this runs the entire line downwards and to the sides, that is, it goes down, the Court loses prestige.” This affects the chambers, this affects the courts of first instance, whether federal or even provincial, and it feeds the belief that there is, or at least what the statistics report, the distrust that exists in Argentina regarding Power. Judicial," said the constitutionalist.
On the contrary, Garay defended the nomination of Manuel García-Mansilla to the Court, replacing Juan Carlos Maqueda, who must retire in December upon turning 75. “He has all the credentials that a good judge and a good judge of the Court must have to integrate the judicial branch. So if such a good candidate is chosen on one hand, how can such a bad candidate be chosen on the other?
It is almost a necessary condition, to say, there must be something more here, because it cannot be that they are so wrong."