Supreme Court takeover of powerful Council of Magistrates rocks Argentine politics
Argentine politics were rocked this week by the takeover of the powerful Council of Magistrates by the country's Supreme Court.
Leopoldo Moreau, chairman of Argentina's House Intelligence Committee, denounced Monday's installation of Supreme Court Chief Justice Horacio Rosatti as president of the Council as a "soft coup" intended to guarantee impunity for former President Mauricio Macri and other leaders of his right-wing Together for Change ahead of elections next year.
In a unanimous ruling last December, the Supreme Court declared the current law governing the Council - passed by Congress in 2006 - "unconstitutional," thus raising the Council's composition of 13 members to the original twenty.
Established after the country's 1994 constitutional overhaul, the Council of Magistrates approves, oversees and removes federal judges.
Recruiting judges
Moreau accused the Court of "rushing to seize control the Council," in order to stop the renewal of judgeships in the high-profile Comodoro Py Federal Criminal Courthouse - where most cases against prominent federal officials are heard.
"All the cases that (Macri and his entourage) have," he noted, "are in Comodoro Py because there is the gang of accomplices who represent the real powers of Argentina and the U.S. Embassy."
Moreau recalled that Andy Camacho, Regional Resident Legal Advisor at the U.S. Embassy from 2019, left Argentina a year ago after accusations surfaced that he "recruited judges and prosecutors - in much the same way they recruited generals (for coups) in earlier times."
Among the Comodoro Py judges whose renewals were under Council review were Pablo Bertuzzi and Leopoldo Bruglia - whom Macri had hand-picked in 2018, and whose designations were never approved by either the Senate or the Council itself, as Argentine law requires.
Others include Mariano Borinsky, Gustavo Hornos, and Mariano Llorens - all whom were revealed by visitor logs to have met with then-President Macri dozens of times at the Quinta de Olivos presidential residence during his 2015-19 administration.
Lawfare
Many of their visits coincided with high-profile rulings against Macri's predecessor (and chief political rival), Cristina Kirchner, or officials in her 2007-15 administration.
Among them were her Vice President Amado Boudou, who was jailed in 2017 on testimony from Alejandro Vandenbroele - whom documents show to have received 4 million pesos in 2018 (over $130,000 at the time) in an apparent quid pro quo.
Similar doubts cloud the 2017 imprisonment of Kirchner-era Planning Minister Julio de Vido (whose conviction was based on a report shown to be fabricated) and his undersecretary Roberto Baratta - against whom proof later "appeared" in the form of numerous notebooks purportedly detailing hundreds of trips made to collect bribes.
The notebooks, however, were never subjected to a handwriting analysis by the presiding judge (the late Claudio Bonadío) - and when defense counsel for one of the businessmen implicated had digital copies analyzed, some 1,623 alterations were found.
Argentina's Congress is meanwhile wrangling over a new Council law - which passed in the Senate on April 7, and which would limit it to 17 members as well as bar the Chief Justice from presiding.
At: https://www-pagina12-com-ar.translate.goog/416395-leopoldo-moreau-denuncio-un-golpe-blando-de-la-corte-suprema?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Night at the Round Table: Argentina's powerful Council of Magistrates - which approves, oversees and removes federal judges - has been the object of frequent political wrangling since its 1998 establishment.
Critics charge that a recent Supreme Court ruling imposing the Chief Justice himself as presiding officer (as well as raising its composition from 13 to 20) amounts to a "soft coup."
The intent, they allege, is to guarantee the continuity of numerous federal judges shown to have engaged in "lawfare" against progressive federal officials, while providing cover for former President Mauricio Macri from numerous corruption and warrantless surveillance charges.
Macri would be the likely front-runner for the right-wing Together for Change nomination should he run next year.
