[A-List] Argentina: restructuring the judiciary

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Argentine Supreme Court faces shake-up
By Adam Thomson in Buenos Aires
Financial Times: June 6 2003

Lawmakers on Thursday began examining the record of Argentina's Supreme
Court president - a move that could lead to a purge of one of the country's
most powerful institutions.

The investigation of Judge Julio Nazareno's alleged misconduct follows a
blistering attack by Néstor Kirchner, Argentina's president, on the
institution late Wednesday night. In his first address to the nation since
taking power last month, Mr Kirchner asked Congress to "set a milestone
towards a new Argentina by protecting the [country's] institutions from men
who are not up to the task at hand".

In what many consider the most daring gamble of his political career, Mr
Kirchner declared: "It is scandalous that some [Supreme Court members] try
to hold the nation's governance hostage to obtain personal or institutional
guarantees."

Mr Kirchner - and most Argentines - have long considered the Supreme Court a
corrupt and politically tainted institution. In 1991 Carlos Menem, then
president, shook up the court, adding handpicked judges who tipped it in his
favour.

Of the court's nine members today, Mr Nazareno, the prime target of Mr
Kirchner's attack, is the most closely associated with the unpopular Mr
Menem. Like the former president, the judge is from La Rioja province, and
even shared a legal practice with Senator Eduardo Menem, Mr Menem's brother.

"Nazareno is a great target because he is the closest thing the country's
institutions have left to resembling Menem and the old-style of corrupt
politics that he symbolises," Sergio Berenstein, professor of politics at
the Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, said.

Despite the court's lack of popularity, analysts said the president was
laying his political future - and even the country's economic stability - on
the line.

By involving Congress, Mr Kirchner is testing for the first time his ability
to muster support in a highly fragmented legislature. Unlike Mr Menem or Edu
ardo Duhalde, the former president, Mr Kirchner does not have his own
faction to help win the two-thirds majority required for such cases.

Nor is Congress's support guaranteed. Last year Mr Duhalde tried, and
failed, to change the court's composition, accusing its members of poor
performance.

Prof Berenstein argues that sending the case back to Congress barely eight
months after it was thrown out casts Argentina's already-battered
institutions in a poor light. It also repeats an unfortunate precedent.
"Once again, we have a president who is trying to alter the composition of
the Supreme Court," he said.

Moreover, if Mr Kirchner's attempts at reform fail, the court will almost
certainly begin reprisals, potentially jeopardising economic stability.

On Thursday, speculation was already mounting that the court could soon rule
in favour of a woman whose dollar-denominated savings were forcibly
converted into pesos in last year's messy devaluation.

A decision ordering the bank to return the deposits in their original
currency would set a precedent for thousands of other depositors. That could
force the banks to pay out billions of pesos - a cost the government would
ultimately have to bear to keep the financial sector in business.