Declaration of the Justa Word space: “A Court for Democracy” | Proposals from lawyers, officials and justice workers

Twenty years after the popular mobilizations that ended with the automatic majority of the Court, lawyers, civil servants and workers of the public and community service of Justice, grouped in the space Fair Word, released a statement stating that “Both the structure and the task of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation – and of an important part of the judicial power in general – has ceased to be compatible with the functioning of democracy.” They also propose to implement changes “immediately” in the highest court.

In the statement, they assure that “challenging the democracy of the government of the representatives, elected by popular vote, through rulings that hinder executive and legislative decisions, has become the usual mechanism for some years, by an organism that is shipwrecked. without direction or rudder, lost in his privileges, without having to render accounts to anyone ”.

Among the modifications suggested to “find a Court for democracy again”, which “put an end to the privileges, arbitrariness and lack of control in which the conducts of judicial institutions in Argentina are immersed”, they propose: changes in the composition and the number of the members of the Court; establish selection mechanisms that limit their field of action, the number of cases to be resolved and the creation of an intermediate court to resolve arbitrary claims, with federal jurisdiction and in all provinces; normatively establish deadlines for the resolution of cases; and that the Court respects art. 114 of the National Constitution and return to the Council of the Magistracy the real administration of economic and financial resources and the competence to issue licenses, passes, transfers, etc. of the Judicial Power.

“We believe that resolving with political and democratic authority what is urgent will allow us to retrace a process of deeper transformations in the Argentine judicial system to find a Court for democracy again “, they conclude.

The full statement of Just Word

Twenty years after the popular mobilizations that ended with the automatic majority of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and inaugurated a hopeful cycle of republican and democratic changes in the highest organ of the Judiciary, lawyers, civil servants and public service workers and community justice grouped in the space “WORD JUSTA”, we want to share some reflections and urgent actions.

For a long time, in Argentina, both the structure and the task of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation – and of an important part of the judiciary in general – has ceased to be compatible with the functioning of democracy. At this point, it is institutionally impossible to justify the constant attack by the Court on the democratic authority of the citizens and their legitimate representatives. Challenging the democracy of the government of the representatives, elected by popular vote, through rulings that impede executive and legislative decisions, has become the usual mechanism for some years, by an organism that is shipwrecked without direction or rudder, lost in their privileges, without being accountable to anyone.

These days we observe perplexed how the Supreme Court went to the extreme of reestablishing a repealed law, breaking the constitutional limits of its powers and abruptly invading the functions of the legislative branch.

In previous years, specifically in the second presidential term of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, we have witnessed how power factors habitually resorted to the judiciary, both in ordinary justice and in its federal sphere, to hinder the application of laws approved by Congress. with loose majorities. The judicial itinerary drawn up by highly relevant laws such as Law 26. 522 (Audiovisual Communication Services Law) or the much-talked about “democratization of justice” law are just one example of the undemocratic vocation of an important part of the judiciary , in collusion with other corporations. To this we must add the daily mistreatment, persecution and biased application of the – now obsolete – regulations that the local and federal courts and chambers apply to the popular sectors.

Such an anomaly not only strains the constitutional system and the division of functions, but directly fractures it.

Such blows from the court, and from the judiciary in general, against the basic rules of the Argentine institutional model, fundamentally exposes two issues: detachment from the rules of the Constitution and the rule of law on the part of said magistrates, and the deficient design of our highest judicial body.

Well, beyond the quality of those who make it up, the truth is that a Supreme Court reduced to the discretion of three people is unjustifiable in constitutional and democratic terms. There is no democracy in the world today that conditions and subjects its entire political system and state management to the (better or worse) discretion of three people. Well, here it is no longer a question of valid discretion or manifest arbitrariness, it is that we have reached the irrationality of inverting the basic rules of democracy and the principle of representativeness.

Just as the Constitution expressly prohibits the Supreme Court from invading and exercising powers that are proper and exclusive to another power of the State, the same constitutional system, rationally interpreted, prevents such a concentration of power in the hands of three people.

We consider that it is necessary and urgent that the National Executive Power and the Legislative Power advance immediately in promoting, legislating and regulating the following changes in the highest court:

• Changes in the composition and number of the members of the CSJN, consolidating gender and federal equality.

• Establish selection mechanisms that limit their field of action, the number of cases to be resolved, and the creation of an intermediate court to resolve arbitrary claims, with federal jurisdiction and in all provinces.

• Regulatory establish deadlines for the resolution of cases

• That the CSJN respect art. 114 of the National Constitution and return to the Council of the Magistracy the real administration of economic and financial resources and the competence to issue licenses, passes, transfers, etc. of the Judicial Power.

We believe that resolving with political and democratic authority what is urgent will allow us to retrace a process of deeper transformations in the Argentine judicial system to find a Court for democracy again. Let them end the privileges, arbitrariness and lack of control in which the conducts of the judicial institutions in Argentina are immersed. That he reconnects with a country project that solves the great national problems and the daily sufferings of the Argentine people.