Argentina move 'will undermine the judiciary'
The Financial Times, Feb 21, 2006
By Benedict Mander in Buenos Aires
Argentina's lower house of Congress is expected to pass on Wednesday key reforms to the judicial council that critics fear will "seriously undermine" the independence of the judiciary and fail to promote the appointment of good judges.
Already approved by the Senate, the proposed reforms to the judicial council, which is responsible for the appointment and dismissal of judges, will reduce its size from 20 to 13 members, with the intention of enhancing its efficiency and transparency.
But the relative weighting of political representatives on the council will be increased significantly, falling from nine to seven members, while independent members; represented by judges, lawyers and academics; will fall from 11 to six.
"The government will end up with a remarkable power of veto, which is very serious indeed. The council will become pointless," said Daniel Sabsay, a constitutional lawyer, explaining that five of the seven political representatives would be from the ruling party.
With a two-thirds majority required to approve appointments and dismissals, the government will effectively be able to block decisions with which it disagrees. "There are serious risks for the independence of the judiciary, which is absolutely shameful," Mr Sabsay said. Opponents of the reforms also worry they will fail to promote the necessary conditions to attract the best applicants. This is one of the few issues to unify what has otherwise been a deeply fragmented opposition, which political analysts say has little chance of defeating President Néstor Kirchner in the elections in 2007; so long as the economy remains healthy until then.
Agustín Rossi, the president of Mr Kirchner's party, Frente para la Victoria, said: "We are convinced that this is just an attempt by the opposition to stigmatise the government."
He argues that criticisms from lawyers and academics are self-interested and designed to preserve their own influence.
Mr Rossi points to reforms made shortly after Mr Kirchner became president which overhauled the mechanism for selecting the Supreme Court's judges, placing limits on the president's power while giving way to a more participatory selection process.
But non-partisan groups such as New York-based Human Rights Watch have also criticised this list of reforms.
In an open letter to Mr Kirchner, the organisation said the reforms would "jeopardise the constitutional principles on which the council is based and seriously undermine the progress that Argentina has made under this government in consolidating judicial independence and the rule of law".
Ricardo Gil Lavedra, a lawyer and former justice minister, said: "Argentina maintains a façade of the state of law but in practice there is a great disequilibrium." Against a comfortable majority in the Senate, the judiciary is an important check on the executive's power, he argues.
Mr Gil Lavedra is concerned about what he sees as the president's increasingly authoritarian style, made possible by the popularity he has gained from Argentina's impressive recovery since its debt crisis four years ago. Mr Kirchner has never held a cabinet meeting. "He is his own economy minister, his own foreign minister," Mr Gil Lavedra said.
Observers say the independence of institutions in general; not just the judiciary; is weakening, with the media and the central bank often cited as examples. "Kirchner is trying to take control [by himself] and he has been very successful," said Ricardo López Murphy, one of the main opposition candidates and leader of the Recrear party, who came third in the 2003 presidential election.