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REPORTS: ARGENTINA |
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Third
Justice on Corruption-Tainted Supreme
Court Resigns
Marcela
Valente
BUENOS AIRES, (IPS) - The political
offensive in Argentina to restore the
prestige of the Supreme Court led to
the fall of yet another judge, who
handed in his resignation Thursday to
avoid an imminent impeachment trial
for malfeasance.
Judge Guillermo López said he would
leave his post on Dec. 1. The
announcement came just hours before
the start of a meeting of the Chamber
of Deputies impeachment commission.
The commission was convened to study
the multiple charges against the
justice and, if determined to have
merit, would then ask the Senate to
remove López from the bench.
The chairman of the commission, Deputy
Ricardo Falú, said López's
resignation helps to end an era in
which ''the executive and judiciary
branches exchanged favours to
guarantee impunity'' for serious
crimes -- a reference to a number of
much-criticised Supreme Court rulings
in the 1990s.
López's decision brings to three the
number of justices who have resigned
from the nine-member Court, long
accused of following the dictates of
the government of Carlos Menem
(1989-1999). A fourth judge has been
suspended.
The economic-social collapse of
December 2001 and the subsequent
resignation of then-president Fernando
de la Rúa stoked criticisms of the
Supreme Court justices.
The Association of Labour Attorneys is
one of the groups that has organised
weekly protests on Thursdays outside
the Supreme Court since December 2001,
demanding that all of the justices
step down.
The Association's secretary-general, Mónica
Jensen, told IPS she is pleased that López
resigned. But she said it would have
been better for the judges to be tried
and, as a consequence, to lose the
benefits that they retain if they
merely step down, including a pension
of nearly 5,000 dollars a month.
Jensen, who pledges to continue
participating in protests demanding a
complete overhaul of the Supreme
Court, said that in the field of
labour law, ''this Court
systematically ruled against the
rights of workers, and the judge that
did not act wrongly through commission
did so through omission.''
In a survey conducted by the Enrique
Zuleta Puceiro polling firm, 92
percent of respondents described as
''good or very good'' the decision by
the Chamber of Deputies to demand the
impeachment of the members of the
Court, while 70 percent said all of
the Court's justices should be
replaced.
Most of the allegations against the
justices date back to the early 1990s,
when Menem convinced Congress, where
he enjoyed a majority, to vote in
favour of the expansion of the Court
from five to nine members, and packed
the Court with four hand-picked
judges.
The new justices, plus the ones
already sitting on the Court who also
tended to rule in favour of the
government's decisions, comprised an
''automatic majority''.
These judges provided a juridical
basis for the government's
initiatives, no matter how
controversial, and a foundation for
the cozy ties between powerful
business elites and the government,
according to critics.
But accusations against Supreme Court
judges and demands for impeachment set
forth by opposition lawmakers failed
to prosper in Congress due to the lack
of support from the two strongest
parties, Menem's Justicialista (Peronist)
Party and the Radical Civic Union.
However, last year, the caretaker
government of Eduardo Duhalde gave its
support to the complete renovation of
the Court, which paved the way for a
frustrated attempt to hold impeachment
trials in the lower house of Congress
of all of the justices.
Although that effort fell flat, it
prompted the resignation of Judge
Gustavo Bossert, who, although not one
of the most heavily questioned
justices, claimed ''moral exhaustion''
over the constant accusations against
the Court. The vacancy was filled by
then-Senator José Luis Maqueda, who
was proposed by Duhalde.
But the demands to overhaul the Court
have taken on new momentum since
left-leaning President Néstor
Kirchner of the Justicialista Party
was sworn in on May 25.
Just two weeks after taking office,
Kirchner accused the Court of using
its verdicts to block his
administration's initiatives, such as
decisions involving the financial
system. He asked parliament to hold
separate impeachment trials for each
magistrate.
The Chamber of Deputies then initiated
impeachment trials against Supreme
Court president Julio Nazareno, who
resigned after evidence had been
gathered in relation to 22 charges of
malfeasance.
This month, the Senate suspended
Justice Eduardo Moliné O'Connor until
the impeachment trial was complete.
Among the charges facing Moliné
O'Connor and López are those related
the so-called ''Meller case'', in
which the Meller company signed a
phone-book publishing contract in the
early 1990s with Entel, the government
telephone monopoly at the time.
In the case, the Court ordered Entel
to pay Meller damages of 30 million
dollars for alleged non-compliance by
the state enterprise, in spite of the
fact that several audits considered
the figure highly disproportionate to
the services rendered by Meller.
Another case in which Moliné O'Connor
and López, as well as Nazareno, were
implicated is the Macri case, in which
a much-criticised Court decision let
off business tycoon Francisco Macri,
accused of car smuggling and tax
evasion.
Cabinet chief Alberto Fernández said
Thursday that López resigned for
''absolutely personal'' reasons, but
''in line with the idea of giving new
oxygen to the judicial system, and the
Supreme Court in particular.''
That is why the Kirchner
administration, on the recommendation
of civil society groups, including
human rights organisations, decided
that the candidates for the Supreme
Court will be submitted to public
scrutiny before public Senate hearings
take place prior to the final vote on
the appointment.
To replace Nazareno, Kirchner has
proposed Eugenio Zaffaroni, a criminal
lawyer renowned at home and abroad for
his defence of human rights, and a
former head of the United Nations
Latin American Institute for the
Prevention of Crime and the Treatment
of Offenders.
Zaffaroni's appointment was ratified
Wednesday, with the backing of human
rights activists, leftist parties and
civil society leaders.
Kirchner must now propose candidates
to fill the vacancies left by López
and Moliné O'Connor, if the latter's
impeachment trial ends in his removal.
The possible replacements are likely
to include women -- only one has ever
served on Argentina's Supreme Court --
and individuals representing different
legal specialties and even the
country's different regions.
Cabinet chief Fernández stressed that
the government is committed to
ensuring that the new vacancy will be
filled by a man or woman who is
technically and morally appropriate
for the position, though he did not
name names.
Deputy Marcela Rodríguez, of the
centre-left Party for a Republic of
Equals and author of the book ”Women
and Justice”, presented a bill in
June that would set a quota for women
justices on the Supreme Court. Such
quotas already exist for both houses
of Congress.
”The absence of the female
perspective in the Court perpetuates
the situation of the exclusion of
women in public life,” says the
legislative initiative, which proposes
that there cannot be more than 70
percent of either men or women on the
bench.
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