ARGENTINA: OVERHAUL OF SUPREME COURT CONTINUES.
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner's efforts to overhaul the Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ) have been aided by one justice's resignation and the investigation by Congress of another. Since the presidency of Carlos Saul Menem (1989- 1999), the judiciary has been marked by corruption and conflicts of interest that affected many of the decisions it handed down.
Signaling the latest change in the court, on Oct. 23, Justice Guillermo Lopez handed in his resignation, effective Dec. 1, to avoid an imminent impeachment trial for malfeasance. The announcement came just hours before a meeting of the impeachment committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which had been convened specifically to study the charges against Lopez.
If the committee had found that the charges had merit, it would have recommended that the Senate remove Lopez from the bench. The judge's resignation reportedly surprised his colleagues, but the government said that it was "an important step toward improving the functioning of the tribunal."
Committee chair Deputy Ricardo Falu said Lopez's resignation helped to end an era in which "the executive and judicial branches exchanged favors to guarantee impunity" for serious crimes--a reference to a number of much-criticized CSJ rulings in the 1990s.
Cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez said that Lopez resigned for "absolutely personal" reasons, but he added that the decision was "in line with the idea of giving new oxygen to the judicial system, and to the CSJ in particular."
The Asociacion de Abogados Laboralistas (AAL) is one of the groups that has organized weekly protests outside the CSJ since December 2001, demanding that all of the justices step down. AAL secretary general Monica Jensen said she was pleased that Lopez resigned. But she said it would be better if the judges accused of corruption were tried because, if they were found guilty, they would lose the benefits that they retain if they merely step down, including a pension of nearly US$5,000 a month.
Jensen said she would continue demanding a complete overhaul of the CSJ. She said that "this court systematically ruled against the rights of workers, and the judges who did not act wrongly through commission did so through omission."
Dismantling the "automatic majority"
Lopez is the third judge who has resigned from the nine- member court, and a fourth judge has been suspended--all of them members of the "automatic majority," the group of judges who voted solidly in the interests of...
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