The Association of Magistrates and Officers of National Justice argued this Friday that Neither prosecutors nor judges are required to explain their decisions to members of the executive or legislative branch. In this way, the entity has repudiated what happened in the last hours of the impeachment commission that supports the lawsuit against the Supreme Court of Justice. Over there the ruling party questioned the judge Sebastian Ramos and officials from the highest court who testified this week. And he summoned the prosecutor for the following days Carlos Stormelli.
In a press release made public this evening, the entity specifies: “the opinions presented by the prosecutors within the framework of a legal procedure admit the exclusive appreciation of the judge who must decide on it”. And he warned that “any institutional expression apart from this, even if it comes from judges incompetent in litigation, the provisions of the national Constitution and the organic law of the public ministry constitute a grievance”.
“The constitutional primacy is clear and does not admit submission to rules that govern the activity of other state powers,” he said. The allusion was addressed to the internal committee that governs the operation of the impeachment committee of the Chamber of Deputies, on which the party in power relies to proceed – by a majority of 16 members out of 15 – to the selection and the summoning of cookies, test orders and the speed of the process.
“In this cable car, as much as it is not for the magistrates to pronounce us on the way in which the legislative and executive powers carry out their functions, we reject any attempt on their part to attribute powers which do not correspond to them”, affirmed the Association, with the signature of President Marcelo Gallo Tagle and Secretary General Marcelo Paluzzi.
For the avoidance of doubt, the entity pointed out: “Even prosecutors should not explain their opinions to ladies and gentlemen deputies and deputies of the Nation nor the judges their decisions. In this line it was added: “There are corresponding recursive tools for parties and also possibly disciplinary tools.”
“The content of the award, produced within the framework of procedural codes, must be respected because legal certainty depends on it, which ultimately establishes the rule of law. For this reason, I subscribe to the words of the Association, ”said judge and member of the Judicial Council Alejandra Provítola, representative of another faction within the entity.
It’s all part of what happened this Thursday in the impeachment commission, chaired by Entre Ríos deputy of the FDT Cecilia Gaillard, when the round of witnesses was opened in the ruling party’s attempt to impeach the judges Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Ricardo Lorenzetti. Precisely, at the start of the hearing, the opposition denounced “serious irregularities” in the functioning of the commission which make “illegitimate, arbitrary and illegal and, invalidated” the process.
The first witness called was Judge Sebastián Ramos. He was summoned for having signed a resolution which ordered the file of the complaint lodged against Silvio Robles, director of the spokesman of the Minister Rosatti, for the alleged conversations which appeared at the end of last year while speaking with the Minister of Justice and Security Marcelo D’Alexandre of Buenos Aires. Ramos granted prosecutor Stornelli’s request for “impossibility to prosecute”: the alleged chats broadcast were illegal.
“I will not move a word from the resolution,” said the judge, questioned repeatedly about the content of his sentence. The judge explained that without a tax boost, he had no chance of moving forward. Ruling bloc president Germán Martínez asked Ramos if he had systematic contact with D’Alessandro or Robles and the judge answered no.
Martínez also requested Stornelli’s summons for the next hearing, as he understood that Ramos had implicated him in his opinion. Deputy Rodolfo Tailhade assured that he was going to request a request for false testimony against Judge Ramos.
After Ramos, the ruling party and the opposition questioned Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla, who received Governor Axel Kicillof’s complaint against Robles when closing the case in Comodoro Py. Ramos Padilla considered that beyond the fact that he was not competent to intervene, he questioned the closure of the case, strengthening the position of the ruling party.
At the start of the hearing, Gaillard announced that they had decided to go to the judge to request reports from the Court’s Listening Department (DAJUDECO) on incoming and outgoing calls from Court judges and witnesses. . The ruling party assured that it was empowered to do so because its rules of procedure allowed it.
It was one of the most disputed points of the procedure since this process began, under the impetus of President Alberto Fernández on January 1, after the Supreme Court judgment which gave rise to a provisional measure requested by the city government against a reduction in common funds. in favor of the province of Buenos Aires in the midst of a pandemic.
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