Верховный суд Аргентины: история и современность

Highest court in Argentina

The Supreme Court of Argentina (lang es), officially known as the Supreme Court of Justice of the Argentine Nation (lang es, CSJN), is the highest court of law of the Argentine Republic. It was inaugurated on 15 January 1863. However, during much of the 20th century, the Court and the Argentine judicial system in general, lacked autonomy from the executive power. The Court was reformed in 2003 by the decree 222/03. The Supreme Court functions as a last resort tribunal. Its rulings cannot be appealed. It also decides on cases dealing with the interpretation of the constitution (for example, it can overturn a law passed by Congress if deems it unconstitutional). The members of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President with the agreement of at least two thirds of the present Senate members in a session convened for that purpose, and can only be removed by an impeachment process called juicio político ("political trial"), initiated by the Chamber of Deputies and carried out by the Senate, exclusively on grounds of improper behaviour.

The Supreme Court of Argentina is headquartered in the Palacio de Justicia, in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of San Nicolás (the surrounding area is commonly known as "Tribunales" due to the palace's location). The building was designed by French architect Norbert Maillart in 1906, and initially inaugurated in 1910. Subsequent works, both logistical and aesthetic, continued until 1942, and among its most noteworthy monuments are Justice, by Rogelio Yrurtia, and José de San Martín, by Luis Perlotti.

Until the 2000s, the Court lacked independence from the executive branch in many cases. Several of its justices were accused of forming an "automatic majority", who consistently agreed on votes having to do with interests of the administration. Authors have underlined a sort of "spoils system", leading to changes of the Court's composition following each new political majority. The Supreme Court has been characterized by both "instability in its composition" and inconsistency in its rulings. On 9 November 2006 Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (the President's wife) presented a legislative bill to repeal Law 24774, which dictated the increase to nine justices, in order to eventually return to the original number of five. Most of the members of the Court welcomed this project.

The renewal of the Supreme Court in the first years of the Kirchner administration was advertised and is usually acknowledged as a positive step, bringing more independence to the Judicial Branch and addressing issues of ideological bias. Until mid 2004, all of the justices were male. They were considered conservative, as most were devout Catholics. In contrast, the two most recently appointed justices (Elena Highton and Carmen Argibay) are female; Argibay, former ad litem judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and former president of the International Association of Women Judges, is a self professed feminist and atheist, who supports the legalization of abortion in Argentina. Eugenio Zaffaroni (the first to be designated through the public nomination method) is viewed as a politically center left wing guarantist Justice, and also a scholar of critical criminology.