Impeachment Committee requests to open inquiry against Supreme Court justices
The ruling Victory Front (FpV) does not seem willing to cease its efforts to put the Supreme Court in a complicated situation as Kirchnerite lawmakers yesterday requested to open an investigation to determine if the four justices falsified a public document when Ricardo Lorenzetti was re-elected to lead the country’s highest tribunal for a third time.
Sources from the Pink House late last night insisted that the request only sought information about Fayt’s presence at the re-election meeting and not about the other three justices.
In the central courthouse, the request was met with shock but sources made it clear they did not have any information about the filing made by the Kirchnerite lawmakers who are part of the Lower House Impeachment Committee.
The justices will be meeting today on and they are likely to respond to what in the Supreme Court is considered to be part of an onslaught by the national government.
Two weeks earlier, the Impeachment Committee opened an investigation to determine if 97-year-old Justice Carlos Fayt’s faculties were sharp enough to continue working at the Supreme Court.
The Impeachment Committee is led by Anabel Fernández Sagasti — a member of the youth organization La Cámpora.
In response to the Kirchnerites’ attempt to test his mental health, Fayt went back to the courthouse and took part in two weekly meetings. Now the FpV wants to make it clear that the investigation is not just about Fayt but the court as a whole.
The FpV members of the Impeachment Committee yesterday filed a writ before the Lower House Speaker Julián Domínguez to request the committee led by Fernández Sagasti to investigate whether the Supreme Court did not falsify the administrative resolution announcing Lorenzetti’s second re-election and the one that ratified his appointment. Sources close to Domínguez yesterday told the Herald that the writ reached his hands as an administrative step and that he was immediately going to send it to the Lower House Impeachment Committee.
Juliana Di Tullio, the head of the FpV caucus in the Lower House, was behind the strategy. Fernández Sagasti did not sign the request as she will be the one responsible for giving a green light to the debate on whether to start a probe or not.
The Lower House Impeachment Committee will have to meet to analyze this request and decide how to move forward with the investigation into Fayt but there is no meeting scheduled yet, sources from that body yesterday told the Herald.
The FpV is not seeking to impeach the members of the Supreme Court but their manoeuvre is seen as a clear step to try to pressure the tribunal, which has been resisting changes. Lorenzetti has even suggested that the Court could function with three justices due to the reluctance to opposition senators to vote for a replacement for Eugenio Zaffaroni, the justice who stepped down on December 31 before turning 75.
Re-elections
On April 22, the Centre for Judicial Information (CIJ) reported that the members of the Court had elected Lorenzetti and Deputy Chief Justice Elena Highton de Nolasco to continue leading the tribunal until 2019.
The decision was reportedly adopted a day earlier, when the justices also declared null and void a list of substitute justices for the Supreme Court that was voted by the FpV last year. The members of the Court said that a two-third majority was required to appoint any member to the Court, even one who will only act temporarily.
Court sources told the Herald that the justices wanted to prevent any attempt by the national government to take over the country’s highest tribunal. Justices believe the Pink House wanted to increase the number of justices on the bench and, as they are short of that majority in the Senate, to fill those seats with substitute justices.
According to administrative resolution No. 11, Fayt had a leading role on April 21, when he suggested Highton de Nolasco as Lorenzetti’s number two. But Página/12 columnist Horacio Verbitsky revealed that Fayt was not present that day. In fact, he signed the writ in his home in the City neighbourhood of Recoleta. Fayt’s lawyer, Jorge Rizzo, in conversation with the Herald also acknowledged that the justice appointed in 1983 signed hundreds of writs that day.
Following that report, Lorenzetti went back on May 4 to the Court and told his colleagues he wanted to step down as chief justice, also sending a letter to Verbitsky to inform him about his decision.
But later that day, Court sources said that Lorenzetti was suffering from “moral fatigue” and he was considering not accepting his new re-election. On May 5, a press release was published on the CIJ website confirming the election made on April 21.
The return
On May 13, Fayt was back in the courthouse to sign a new administrative resolution to confirm — again — the re-election of Lorenzetti and Highton de Nolasco.The four justices sought to portray themselves as united in confirming Lorenzetti as head of the country’s highest tribunal until 2019. Lorenzetti’s current term as chief justice does not expire until January 2016.
According to the writ, justices decided to anticipate the election because they wanted to make it clear that despite political changes, the Court was not going to modify its jurisprudence and to ratify those in charge of the relations with other branches of the state, with provincial authorities and society as a whole.
“There was a need to preserve and deepen the enormous efforts the Court has been making in defence of the necessary independence of the Judiciary that the republican system requires,” the four justices wrote on May 13.
In the new writ, the justices tried to make it clear that Fayt had been present in the discussion, which reportedly took place on April 14, although the resolution was signed a week later.
“It was irrelevant whether the decision was made inside or outside the courtroom where justices meet to discuss resolutions,” resolution No. 15 reads.
Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández — who has become the government’s spokesman in the dispute with the Supreme Court and one of those who has been pushing to test Fayt’s mental faculties — accused the justices of falsifying a public document. FpV lawmakers seem to be following his steps.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald