The Parliament began to study the president’s request on Thursday, but the executive does not have two thirds of the necessary votes, making the process above all symbolic.
by Flora Knees (Buenos Aires, correspondent)
The announcement took place on 1 er January. In his first message of the year addressed to the Argentines, the Peronist president, Alberto Fernandez (center left), expressed his intention to dismiss the president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti. He subsequently extended it to the four members of the highest court in the country, responsible for guaranteeing respect for the Argentine Constitution.
The possibility that the executive requests the dismissal of the Supreme Court is provided for by fundamental law. He returns to Parliament to validate it with two thirds of the votes. With this in mind, the president summoned the Congress in extraordinary session in the middle of the southern summer. Thursday, January 26 opened the first stage of the process with the discussion in the so -called “political trial” committee. The year begins on a strong tension between the executive and the justice in Argentina.
The opposition firmly denounced the dismissal project, “of an inadmissible institutional gravity” according to it. According to the right -wing deputy Mario Negri, it is “an infamous intimidation in order to attract the sympathy of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and to seek impunity”. The vice-president was found guilty of fraudulent administration in the prejudice of the State in December 2022 and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. In the event of an appeal, his final appeal could be the Supreme Court.
deleterious climate
The reasons put forward for this attempted dismissal are detailed in a document from the president, supported by eleven provincial governors. All converge on this accusation: “The scandalous link between part of the policy [right -wing opposition] and justice”, which would constitute a threat to the rule of law, according to Alberto Fernandez. The accusation document notably refers to a December judgment of the Supreme Court endorseting a distribution of tax revenue favorable to the federal district of the city of Buenos Aires. The capital is governed by Horacio Larreta, a figure in the right opposition and possible candidate for the October presidential election.
The executive also criticizes the stranglehold on the advice of the magistracy, a highly strategic organ responsible for appointing the judges in Argentina. Since April 2022, he has been chaired by the President of the Supreme Court himself, accused of “bad exercise of his functions” and of working for the right.
The document also returns to what it considers as proof of the connections between the Supreme Court and the Opposition: exchanges supposed by instant messaging between Silvio Robles, the right arm of the President of the Supreme Court, and Marcelo D’Alessandro, the Minister of Justice of the City of Buenos Aires. In these conversations, disclosed in the press in December, the two men evoke the strategic situation of the judicial council. The exchanges would prove, according to the executive, “the promiscuity obscene” between the president of the Supreme Court and the right -wing opposition. However, a judge said on January 19 that these messages could not be considered as proof because they were obtained thanks to “illegal espionage activities”. Marcelo d’Alessandro assured that these exchanges had been “invented”.
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