Doubts about the legitimacy of the agreement with the IMF and the penal liability of the signatories

Those who know the mechanics of making these loans know that they are generally the same way, without prior intervention of administrative records or presidential decrees, but that they are first negotiated informally, and that the instruments such as the letters of intent and the respective annexes. But in this respect, it is necessary to specify some points concerning the operability or not of certain rules and the possible penal liability of the subscribers of the agreement to which Ja Grabrois denounced in federal court.

Is there a congressional law to reach an agreement with the IMF?

he Article 60 of Law 24.156 states that national administrative entities "They can not formalize any public credit transaction that is not provided for in the general budget law of the year in question or in a specific law."

The general finance law must indicate at least the following characteristics of authorized public credit operations:

• Type of debt, specifying whether it is internal or external;
• Maximum amount allowed for the operation;
• Minimum repayment period;
• Destination of funding.

If the public credit operations of the national administration are not authorized by the general finance law of the year in question, they will require a law expressly authorizing them.

Public credit transactions formalized by the national executive authority with the financial institutions of which it is a part are expressly exempted from compliance with the provisions established above in this article.

That is to say that the executive power is authorized to submit to Congress no operation that it formalizes with the IMF to belong to the institution. Although this rule expressly contradicts what is established in the Constitution, which defines the powers of Parliament in all matters relating to the management of the debt, The executive has always usurped these powers and the above-mentioned law allowed them to delegate the negotiation and subcontracting of external obligations.

Although Law 24 156 was promulgated in year 92 and the Constitution of 1994 established that after five years the expiry of the delegated legislation, the rule was systematically extended by several years. . Finally, the Chamber of Deputies in 2013 and the Senate ratified the final validity of the law by approving the Legal Digest, by the promulgation of Law 26 939, May 21, 2014. It should be noted that, by this law, the previous government had a majority in both houses, several laws of the military dictatorship were adopted.

With regard to the IMF, in addition to the provisions of Article 60, Article 71 exempts the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic from the application of this law., in all operations with international organizations to ensure monetary and exchange rate stability, as the current government has done.

Therefore, to argue that the Bank should publish a report on the impact of the transaction on the balance of payments is a nonsense, because if it concludes the agreement, it is obvious that it has considered this end, and this is because in the According to the IMF, it is the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank that sign the documents of the operation. But in addition, this obligation set forth in Article 61 of 24 156 is not opposable to the Central Bank, as this law does not govern the monetary institution.

The "criminal responsibilities" of those who signed the agreement with the IMF

On the criminal responsibilities of the officials who signed, there is an ignorance of the legislation. That there is a political responsibility to have contracted such an obligation is indisputable, but it is not a questionable question, precisely because there is legal regulation that gives them coverage.

And those who emphasize the responsibilities of Lagarde and Werner are probably unaware that the IMF has more immunities than a sovereign country and that its officials also enjoy immunity in all the instruments they subscribe to. . Pretending to subject them to the federal jurisdiction of our country is a sign of the greater ignorance of what these agencies are and how they are managed, covered with deliberate coverage, in order to avoid any responsibility for the disasters that they cause.

In practice, it is impossible for a member country to question the IMF because there is no international body to address, and everything must be resolved within the board of directors. Administration or, possibly, the Board of Governors. Cleverly, everything has been designed to avoid all sorts of questions and the only option left is to leave the institution and not to submit to control of the economy.

The IMF and a structure of subjection that blocks the sovereignty of Argentina

So when the IMF asked the president in the report on Article IV Nestor Kirchner to pay the debt held with the agency, he decided to do it as he had done a few days before the Government of Brazil, also at the request of the Fund, thus complying with the requirements of the l & # 39; 39; institution. Then the speeches would show that it was a decision of Argentina to do so and not to submit to a request made shortly before.

At the 2009 G20 meeting Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed a document stating that "We will support, now and in the future, the sincere, balanced and independent oversight of our economies and our financial systems by the IMF, the impact of our policies on others, and the risks to the global economy. is facing ".

On February 21, 2013, the former president sent to the National Congress, with the signature of the Chief of Staff Medina Juan Manuel Abal and the former Minister of Economy Guido Lorenzino, a bill to approve the 14 IMF quota badessments and to amend clauses 5, 6 and 7 of the Memorandum of Understanding.

In the project message, the former president said that the IMF should promote international monetary cooperation, facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, promote exchange stability, contribute to the establishment of a multilateral payment system and make available to member countries that encounter difficulties the resources of the institution ".

Cristina Fernández asked the Congress to be allowed to hand it to the IMF 3,187,300,000 special drawing rights (SDR) equivalent to $ 5 billion, which would be paid with state resources. 25% would be paid in foreign currency and the remaining 75% in Argentine pesos.

The structure of submissions in which we are inserted for years by unconstitutional laws, extensions of jurisdiction, submissions for arbitration, repeated violations of the Treasury's power of attorney – which for decades has not exercised its defense function of the state, but obeyed that it imposed on it the financial system, it does not give opportunities to exercise our sovereigntysince we will always be conditioned by a legal structure, resulting from the dictatorship, which was perfected in the 90s and that none of the following governments wishes to change.

From 2009 to date, I have prepared different projects to modify the standards that condition us. They were presented by Fernando "Pino" Solanas and have never been dealt with in any of the committees of both houses of Congress. On the contrary, most political leaders with parliamentary representation have turned to them and, in some cases, have ratified them.

* Historian of Argentine foreign debt.