Argentina’s Federal Chamber of Cassation ratified the guilty verdict against former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as well as the sentence of six years of imprisonment and a ban on political participation. According to the ruling, Fernández is “criminally responsible for the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration.”
The judges who ratified the ruling of another court, which Cristina Fernández had appealed, are Mariano Borinski, Gustavo Hornos, and Diego Barroetaveña, members of the IV Chamber of the highest federal court of Argentina, who had already confirmed to some media a few days before that they would ratify the decision.
Cristina Fernández still has the possibility of a final appeal to the Supreme Court, and she is allowed to maintain her freedom until that court ratifies or rules against it. The case has widely been described as lawfare, that is, the use of the justice system by the economic and political elites to persecute their political opponents. Fernández is a former president of Argentina and is currently the leader of Argentina’s Justicialist Party, which in the 21st century in Argentina became a leading party.
Outside the courthouse, political leader Juan Grabois said before dozens of people that the case being discussed is one of the best expressions of lawfare: “We are facing a mafia, an extortive mechanism of disciplining that, fundamentally, seeks money. There is a political intention because otherwise, other officials would be in jail. There is something much more serious, which is the degradation of the rule of law.”
Milei celebrates the decision
The ratification of the ruling has become the epicenter of the political discussion in Argentina. Javier Milei’s government has not been indifferent to the political relevance that Cristina Fernández has in the national political scene, which is the reason why he verbally attacks her every time he has the opportunity. Several weeks ago, the libertarian president said “I would love to put the last nail in the coffin of Kirchnerism with Cristina [Fernández] inside”.
Besides the obvious aggressiveness of the statement, it reveals a political intention behind the persecution of Fernández. This is probably why the Secretariat of Human Capital of Milei’s government did not wait too long to issue an official statement in which it announced “to cancel the privileged benefits that the former President had been receiving, both the [security] personnel allowance and the [life] pension…Having been found guilty of a crime against the public administration in exercising her function as President of the Nation makes it inadmissible that she can continue to receive privileged allowances.”
Fernández defends herself
Given these considerations, former President Fernández, whose defense has already announced that she will appeal the decision before the Supreme Court of Justice, published a statement in which she harshly attacks the arguments of Milei and his Secretariat: “The pension of former Presidents is not granted for good performance but for the merit of having been elected by the people as President of the Nation. The bad performance of a President can only be judged by the Congress of the Nation through the constitutional process of Impeachment, during the term of office. For a very simple reason, Milei: only the people, through their representatives, can revoke the honor and merit of having been elected President of the Nation. What part do you not understand, Milei? It is basic Constitutional Law. And to think that there are people who voted for you believing that you had a lot of knowledge.”
Lastly, Fernández also addressed Milei for his aggressive and condemnatory comments: “You are so out of your mind that the little dictator you have always hidden inside you is appearing (the Argentines who voted for you in good faith will never be able to regret having done so in their lifetime). And then, do you want to associate with the judicial mafia to persecute me too? Are you so afraid of me? I would like to tell you that I was afraid of the dictator Videla, and very much so. But you only make me feel pity and shame.”
What are the social and political consequences of lawfare?
The case of Cristina Fernández is one of several progressive former heads of state who have been accused of different crimes and harshly and quickly tried in order to, among other things, eliminate their political rights and thus prevent them from returning to run for public office. Brazilian President Lula and former president Dilma Rousseff, former Ecuadorian President and Vice President Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas, are some of the most well known cases in the region. According to Wilson Ramos Filho, lawfare, understood as the judicialization of the political struggle and the persecution of political leaders, has very serious consequences for democracy.
For example, through the delegitimization of political leaders and social movements, there is a delegitimization of politics itself, which is seen as an inherently corrupting exercise and therefore alienates people from politics itself. Institutions, the rule of law, and the legitimacy of the State itself are called into question, which promotes an anti-democratic and an anti-republican environment.
Wilson Ramos Filho says this without considering that it creates a dangerous precedent in which people distance themselves from institutional politics for fear of being persecuted by those who manage in the future to make agreements with a judicial system that is apparently ready to make political agreements to judge in a certain way. There is, then, an exercise of structural intimidation, which implies a decrease in freedom of expression and fair access to justice.
