The renewal of the president of the Supreme Court of Justicea traumatic ritual that is repeated every three years and that should now occur before October 1, slipped into the middle of the discussion about the nomination of new members of the highest court. For that reason, it is that It is not ruled out that the vote is brought forward a month and the current majorities are consolidated who successively anointed Carlos Rosenkrantz already Horacio Rosatti in that place.
This debate takes place at a time when The Court analyzes a high-impact case that interests the business world, and that could be known in the coming days, say sources from the judicial field. The content of the ruling is kept strictly confidential, but it would be another good news for the business community, which celebrated when the ruling that put limits on the calculation of interest in workers’ compensationwho had been in court for a few months.
The election of the president of the Court is the origin of the differences maintained by the majority of the body, made up of Rosatti, Rosenkrantz and Juan Carlos Maquedaon the one hand, and Ricardo Lorenzetti for the other. This majority applies to the management of the Court, not to the sentences, which are moved by another legal logic, that of the precedents and the positions held by each of the judges.
In 2018, when Rosenkrantz was elected president, it was the end of Lorenzetti’s 11 uninterrupted years at the head of the Court. Maqueda’s vote, who for years had leaned towards Lorenzetti, was key in that vote.
The end of the Lorenzetti cycle and the subsequent election of Rosatti as president of the Court consolidated a change in the management of the court, which went from a personalist style, anchored in Lorenzetti, to a more collegiate stylewith Rosatti, Rosenkrantz and Maqueda functioning in tandem, and Lorenzetti airing their differences, sometimes publicly.
It happened when questioned the functioning of the social work of the Judiciary y the change of administrator in Court, which involved the removal of Hector Marchi, Rafael like him, who kept the accounts of the highest court during his administration. It also happened with the Court’s agreement on clear language. Lorenzetti, furthermore, does not hide his criticism of the fact that the president of the Court, Rosatti, is also president of the Judicial Council.
After six years of the new balance of power, tension returns to the Court on the eve of a new presidential election. President Javier Miley proposed two candidates to complete the Court: Ariel Lijoto fill the vacancy of Elena Highton, and Manuel García-Mansillato take the place of Maqueda, who this year turns 75, the age limit set by the Constitution.
The Government began the process of appointing both magistrates with the publication in the Official Gazette of their candidacies and began to collect accessions and objections. Lijo and García-Mansilla are active in enlisting the support of their colleagues. But Lijo has the with the help of Lorenzettiof fluid dialogue with the federal justice system in Comodoro Py and in the interior of the country.
The judge of the Court was the one who gave the name Lijo to Milei. Both know each other from when the current president was an economist who debated with Lorenzetti, in his office covered with dark boiserie, the economic theories surrounding contracts, a specialty of the Court judge.
During the campaign, Milei had promised that he would discuss the names of the candidates for the Court with the judges of the highest court. She didn’t, or at least she did it only with Lorenzetti. Milei ended up being convinced that Rosatti is against the dollarization (he said that “it could not be dollarized” because the Constitution mandates defending the value of the currency), close to Peronism and someone who flirted in the campaign with Sergio Massa.
Milei preferred not to consult with Rosatti, whom he distrusted, and leaned against Lorenzetti. In fact, the President made his suspicions public when he said that “three judges of the Court have taken an unfriendly position” with its decree of necessity and urgency 70/23, which deregulates the economy.
The facts showed him that he was being Misinformed. Last week the Court rejected two lawsuits against Milei’s DNU for formal reasons. It did not validate its constitutionality, but rejected two proposals. And now it is preparing to do the same with other demands that do not meet the standards set by the court: that there be a case or controversy and that the legitimacy of the claimant be established.
Now the Court has in its hands the labor chapter of the DNU, questioned by the CGT. But radicalism took its own labor reform project to the Government to discuss it together with the “Bases Law” in Deputies, so The Court will let the political dialogue in Congress advance looking for a solution for the field of labor relations.
Of course, that window won’t last forever. Rosatti already said that Justice must wait a “reasonable period” and then resolve. Only the judges know how long that margin will extend.
If the Senate meets and Lijo obtains the votes of two-thirds of the senators present, The Government and Lorenzetti are excited that the new member will join the Court before October 1when the election for the new president should occur.
However, the arrival of Lijo would not alter the majorities. Whether Rosatti tries for re-election or Rosenkrantz seeks to return to the presidency, they would add three votes to Maqueda’s. On the other side, in the minority, would be Lorenzetti and eventually Lijo.
In the Government the intentional species –originating in the courts– was circulated that indicates that Maqueda would leave the Court before his birthday, December 29. Nothing further from reality. “There is no possibility of Maqueda leaving office early. He will continue until the last day in his office,” said those close to the judge with 20 years in the Court. They noticed him more vigorous than ever, after enduring the onslaught of the Government to try to retire him early, with uncourtly ways..
Only the early departure of Maqueda would allow the arrival of García-Mansilla and the election of the president of the Court would be plunged into suspense. But none of that seems possible today.
Lijo and García-Mansilla are two sides of the same coin, they say in court. The Government’s intention is for both applications to prosper. Lijo’s, to ingratiate himself with Peronism, and García-Mansilla’s, so that the Court has a judge who shares some of Milei’s conservative ideas.such as his questions about abortion or gender ideology.
Lijo still does not have the votes necessary to overcome the debate in the Senate. It needs the approval of Cristina Kirchner, which directly influences almost half of the 33 senators of Unión por la Patria. A Christian legislator told THE NATION that he did not receive any directive in this regard.
But a gesture is worth a thousand words. This week, in the Council of the Judiciary, the former Kirchnerist deputy and current advisor for the lawyers, Héctor Recalde asked to suspend the drawing of a complaint against Lijo to appoint an instructor. “It is not appropriate at this time due to a principle of primacy of reality: when Judge Lijo is a candidate for the Supreme Court It is very difficult to deal with these issues.. That’s why my consideration is to postpone this, we cannot be oblivious to what happens. Here, on one side or another, things are mixed, this case of Lijo, which is possibly about to go to the Supreme Court, we should not discuss it in the Council. My idea is to postpone the treatment,” said Recalde. He obtained the votes both to not move forward with the investigation into Lijo and to postpone the drawing of a complaint against the federal judge of La Plata Alejo Ramos Padilla.
The complaint against Lijo is from the deputy Juan Manuel López, from the Civic Coalition. The party founded by Elisa Carrió pointed out “poor performance” against the judge, understanding “that she carried out maneuvers in the cause of the social work of Justice with the sole purpose of maintaining the criminal action and delaying it.”
Although it has not yet gathered the necessary votes in the Senate, Lijo’s promoters do not lose hope. Close to Lorenzetti they remember that Mauricio Macri needed seven months for the senators, mostly Kirchnerists, to vote for Rosenkrantz and Rosatti.
Last week the federal judge obtained the explicit support of the radical Daniel Angelici, binguero, winemaker, restaurant owner, online betting operator and, above all, all-terrain judicial operator. “If he were a senator, he would approve the appointment of Ariel Lijo”said Angelici.
Despite this, the strongest argument against Lijo may not be criticism of his background, but rather the gender issue. That is to say, a woman was not chosen to fill the vacancies on the Court. Lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez Last Friday, he proposed a precautionary measure to force a woman to be nominated.
Milei wants to design a Court that not only ensures that his reforms pass through the constitutional legal filter, but also has sustainability, as Lorenzetti advises him. It is of no use to Milei to have a Court that leaves its founding norms tied to a precautionary measure, only to see them revoked when the substantive ruling is decided. For this reason, the President continues Macri’s model: his own candidate and another who can seduce the PJ.
Meanwhile, the Court has in its hands dozens of cases that could generate an economic whirlwind in the Government. The lawsuits initiated by the provinces alone already total claims for 1 billion dollars and last week two more were added from Entre Ríos. Nothing seems to be urgently resolved, but the cases are already under study and rotating through different committees.