Judges and prosecutors finalize trial against government demand to resign over 200 magistrates

Judges and prosecutors are working on the final details of what will be a new fight with the government of Alberto Fernandez: legal action to demand the unconstitutionality of the ANSES resolution in which it intimidated more than 200 magistrates and officials who have already retired to submit their resignation. In the list there are the names of judges and prosecutors who occupy key positions for power.

The action will be initiated by the Association of Magistrates and Civil Servants of National Justice (AMFJN) and the Association of Prosecutors and Civil Servants of the Nation (AFFUN), chaired by Marcelo Gallo Tagle and Carlos Rívolo, respectively. Last week, the same day as Martin Soria was announced as Minister of Justice, the entities approved the first draft of the action. The idea is to appear at the federal forum on administrative litigation the first days of this week, before the public holiday on Wednesday for the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice.

“In another context, we would not do a dispute, we would do something more administrative”, Told Infobae one of the people working on the trial. The context is what judges and prosecutors see as an attack on the judiciary as a whole and on some judges in particular. The list includes reform projects – which are dealt with in Congress – to federal justice and the prosecution, President Fernández’s speech to Congress – “The judiciary is in crisis, it seems to live on the fringes of the Republican. system “-, the argument of the vice-president Cristina Kirchner in the future dollar business -” We are in a very serious institutional moment in Argentina, they cannot continue to behave in society “-, the criticisms of Soria – “We have a court, it was complacent when some chambermaids threw out the window all the legal theories learned in college, such as preventive prisons” – and the comments of ANSES.

The lawsuit will coincide with Soria’s arrival at the Justice Department, where he is expected to take office at the end of next week. In the legal world, they want it not to be read as a message to the brand new official. “We have been announcing the trial since the minister was Marcela Losardo”, a judge is arrested. But inevitably, the facts come together and will signify a hotbed of conflict.

At the same time as Soria’s request and support, the issue will be dealt with by the Council of the Judiciary of the Nation, responsible for the administration of the Judicial Power. The opposition presented a note asking ANSES to cancel the notifications because they constitute interference with the judiciary. The ruling party shares the idea that ANSES cannot request a resignation but seeks a less emphatic tone. The decision will be made on Thursday. But there is a consensus to make a statement – the Council no longer has powers over pensions – which will be a political message from the ruling party and the opposition, perhaps together.

The action against ANSES will be the second legal action that the associations of judges and prosecutors have brought against a government initiative. The first was a few months ago, in December, against the new judicial power pension scheme. Upon taking office, Alberto Fernández proposed a reform of the judicial retirement system which was approved by the National Congress in March.

Law 27546 made several changes. It increased the contribution on the salaries of members of the judiciary from 11 to 18 per cent; kept 82% for retirement but with the calculation of the last 120 salaries by a commission that has not yet been created; and it raised the retirement age for men from 60 to 65 on a staggered basis year after year until 65 in 2025. The aim is to reduce the deficit in the system. The Minister of Labor, Claudio Moroni, and the then director of Anses, Alejandro Vanoli, They argued in Congress that the average pension for judges and prosecutors is between 300,000 and 400,000 pesos. ANSES is now in charge of Fernanda Raverta.

The pension reform was the first confrontation between judges and prosecutors with the national government. From the judiciary, they accepted some changes but rejected criticism that they had a deficit regime and stressed that the executive branch had not presented these figures. Thus, at the end of the year, AMFJN and AFFUN called for the unconstitutionality of the reform. They did so in a case which presents a peculiarity: it does not have a judge. The case began in court in federal administrative litigation and has already passed through half a dozen magistrates who have apologized for intervening because they explained that they were covered by the pension plan and that it concerned them at the time of decide. When all the magistrates of the first instance of the jurisdiction apologize – if not one of them accepts – the Chamber will decide how to continue.

In the middle of last month, ANSES – which with the new law is in charge of the retirement of the judiciary until then in charge of the Judicial Council – began sending documents letters to judges, prosecutors, official defenders and officials. who already had retirement granted.

In the text, the body told them they had 30 days to resign and qualify for retirement, otherwise their process would be archived. The alarms went off. The first was political. In the list, there were members of the judiciary whom the national government particularly criticized. Among them, the judges of the Federal Chamber Leopoldo Bruglia and Martín Irurzun, those of the federal cassation Eduardo Righi and Liliana Catucci, the federal magistrate and the electorl Maria Servini, federal prosecutors Carlos Stornelli and Eduardo Taiano, the Acting Attorney General, Eduardo Casal, among others. If the resignations are carried out, these are key places to occupy within the board of directors of the politico-judicial power. The list includes more than 200 members of the judiciary. But the total number is not clear. The AMFJN asked ANSES to know about this list but did not receive a response.

For years, the question of why judges and prosecutors are granted their retirement has been controversial and yet they remain in their posts. “It is a practice of always that the law allows us”, explain a lot without more, when other people have to retire as soon as they have completed the process. For many, retirement has an umbrella effect. They are protected from any legal problem they may encounter that puts them on the brink of indictment. If that happens, they quit and if it is accepted, they retire. On the other hand, if a judge or a prosecutor is dismissed for poor performance, he loses his pension.

The second alarm was due to the uncertainty about the future of the administrative procedure. “The wording of the circular was sufficiently ambiguous to mean anything”, explains a magistrate. What does filing the procedure mean? Some believe that the only effect is that it is suspended until the judge retires, others that it would be necessary to start from scratch and the most pessimistic that if they did not retire now, this would be with the new law which is more harmful.

This is why the entities go to court. They want to be sure of the scope of the ANSES resolution. But The objective of the trial will be the highest: that it be declared unconstitutional, both in the request for resignation and in the file of the procedure. The judges and prosecutors recall that ANSES cannot ask members of the judiciary to resign because they would go beyond the national Constitution which sets the reasons for which a judge ceases to be a judge. They also point out that those who retired with the old regime cannot do so with the new one because it would be like rolling back a law. Some intimidated judges responded to ANSES by rejecting the proposal, such as lawyer Casal. Others have not done so while awaiting the legal presentation of the associations.

“It is one more way of making us feel the harshness of power,” analyzes a judge on the grounds for the ANSES resolution. “The second is to get vacancies in important places,” he adds.

The intervention of the Council

Next week, the Council is expected to intervene in this matter. The body no longer has power over judicial pensions, but they want to send a message.

Last week, the opposition presented a bill asking ANSES to cancel the notifications to judges and prosecutors because they are “a disturbance to the peace of mind of judges and an infringement of the principle of independence of the judicial power of the Nation ”. The proposal bears the signature of the PRO deputy Pablo Tonelli, judges Juan Manuel Culotta and Ricardo Recondo, of the senator of the UCR Silvia giacoppo and lawyers Carlos Matterson and Diego Marías.

The subject was discussed during the last plenary session of the Council. The ruling party asked to postpone the issue until a response sent by ANSES was analyzed in depth but shared with the opposition that it could not ask members of the judiciary to resign. It was differentiated on the authority of the body in the regulation of pensions and its procedure. In this line, the Peronist deputy Graciela Camano presented his own project. “Maybe that’s where the ruling party is,” said an adviser.

The Council’s labor committee met on Thursday and discussed the matter. It has been decided that it will be discussed and resolved in plenary next Thursday at 10 a.m. “We will seek a consensus to be unanimous. But the difference is in the tone of the rejection “, explains an advisor. The opposition wants to send a strong message. “We want to be aligned with the demand of the judicial associations,” explains one of the opposition advisers.

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