Macri's decree appointments to Argentine Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.
Argentine Federal Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla today ruled President Mauricio Macri's designation of two Supreme Court justices through decree to be unconstitutional. The judge, who presides over the Dolores, Buenos Aires Province, federal court, ordered the Supreme Court to abstain from swearing them in.
President Macri came under heavy criticism last week from even many of his allies after he decided to appoint two new acting Supreme Court justices immediately, without Senate confirmation hearings. Macri used an obscure provision in Article 99 of the Argentine Constitution that provides for the recess appointment by decree of federal judges for a term of up to one year.
The decree, Córdoba constitutional lawyer Miguel Rodriguez Villafañe explained, was meant for emergencies and harkens back to an era when senators from distant provinces often took weeks to reach Congress for extraordinary sessions called during the recess period. Macri is the first Argentine president, besides the numerous military dictators that ruled the country for 22 of the 53 years between 1930 and 1983, to name Supreme Court justices by decree since 1862.
Carlos Rosenkrantz and Horacio Rosatti were appointed to replace former justices Carlos Fayt, who stepped down on December 11; and Eugenio Zaffaroni, who retired from the Supreme Court a year ago upon reaching the legal retirement age for judges of 75. Fayt, who is 97, was exempt from the retirement age by a grandfather clause and waited until the day after Macri took office to retire. Former President Cristina Kirchner's nominee to replace Zaffaroni, Roberto Carlés, was blocked in April by a political agreement between the opposition caucuses in the Senate.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/205383/federal-judge-rules-sc-justices-appointment-unconstitutional
