Macri bypasses Congress to appoint two Supreme Court justices by decree (first since 1862). [View all]

[forest444]

Last edited Tue Dec 15, 2015, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Argentine President Mauricio Macri appointed "by commission" (decree) two new members to the Argentine Supreme Court. No democratically elected Argentine president had appointed a Supreme Court justice by decree since Bartolomé Mitre in 1862.

The move raised eyebrows in both Congress and judiciary, since the constitutional mechanism for the appointment of Supreme Court justices in Argentina must be done with the advice and consent of the Senate. Macri is instead making use of Article 99, paragraph 19 of the Constitution, which empowers the president to "fill vacancies for jobs requiring the consent of the Senate, if the Senate is in recess, by means of appointments on commission expiring at the end of the next Congress." While Congress in Argentina is officially in recess from December 1 to March 1, Argentine presidents can (and typically do) call recess sessions if especially significant legislation is on the table; Macri announced over the weekend that he plans to rule entirely by decree until the next Congress convenes on March 1.

The two justices appointed by decree, Carlos Rosenkrantz and Horacio Rosatti, will serve until November 30, 2016, unless the Senate ratifies them.

The Supreme Court has had a vacancy for a year since Justice Raúl Zaffaroni resigned at the end of 2014 due to reaching the court's mandatory retirement age of 75. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's nominee to replace him, Roberto Carlés, enjoyed broad support from the Senate initially; but he never received the necessary two-thirds approval in the Senate due to a political pact among the opposition caucuses to block any Supreme Court justices until the next administration. Carlés' nomination was ultimately withdrawn in April. A second vacancy emerged when 97-year-old Carlos Fayt, the most conservative member of the Court, retired last Friday. Fayt, who was exempt from the age limit of 75 by a grandfather clause, waited until the day after Macri was sworn in to retire.

Macri's broad interpretation of his constitutional decree powers met with opposition from most Argentine constitutional lawyers interviewed regarding the controversy.

Speaking to University of Córdoba radio, constitutional lawyer Miguel Rodriguez Villafañe explained that Article 99/19 harkens back to an era when a legislator from a distant province often took weeks to reach Congress for an extraordinary session during the recess period. The president was thus empowered to fill such vacancies in those circumstances. "Today," he pointed out, "the president's office can make phone calls and gather all the senators within ten hours. Macri chose the shortcut instead."

For this reason, Villafañe Rodriguez said it is "urgent that Congress convene itself and exercise its own powers, lest by March next year the Judiciary be completely overrun and Congress itself be hamstrung by the many decrees that are already being implemented."

Former UCR Congressman Ricardo Gil Lavedra, one of the presiding judges in the historic 1985 Trial of the Juntas, condemend President Mauricio Macri’s decree. “It is a mistake and it’s a pity because we all count on institutional normality,” he told reporters today in an interview with the Radio 10 station.

“It is politically understandable why he wanted to bypass Congress; it buys him a year to negotiate other issues,” he conceded. “It is, however, a mistake and sets a very sinister precedent because future presidents will now name judges and justices during summer recess.”

Constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez considered Macri’s decree “an exception that can only be applied in a situation of verifiable urgency. Today, we are not in such a situation.” He added that “considering the promises of consensus that he (Macri) touted during the campaign, it is important he reviews this measure."

“These decrees," Gil Domínguez concluded, "do harm to the nation's institutions.”

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.cba24n.com.ar/content/macri-se-saltea-al-congreso-y-nombra-dos-jueces-de-la-corte&prev=search

And: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/205015/constitutional-lawyers-say-macris-decree-a-serious-mistake