The waiter Carlos “Coco” Mahiquesfather of the Minister of Justice, Juan Bautista Mahiquesdefended his statement this Thursday to access the extension for five more years in his position in the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation. The chambermaid is close to turning 75, the age limit to be a judge established in the National Constitution. The office had the signatures of pro-government and allied senators and now the ruling party could discuss the designation in the chamber on April 28. Meanwhile, Peronism could not sign a rejection opinion because the problems with places on the commissions continue.
With challenges involved, the magistrate expressed in the Senate Agreements Commission: “What is being evaluated at this moment is my condition to ratify myself in this position, outside of any discussion of the appointment itself. It is a sovereign decision that the Senate made and the Executive Branch complied with.”
The main question was raised by the senator from the Justicialist bloc, Anabel Fernández Sagasti, who made reference to the challenges presented by the Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ) and the Institute of Comparative Studies in Criminal and Social Sciences (INECIP).
In this regard, he recalled that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in the “Bertuzzi” precedent of 2020—after that transfer—established that transfers are provisional acts that cannot be equated to appointments. “If the Senate granted a new appointment to Carlos Mahiques, it would be validating a practice that has already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court itself”.
Along the same lines, his peer, Martin Soria, He stated: “He just told us that the 2020 ruling would not be applicable in his case, which is a fallacy. He was hand-transferred by former president Mauricio Macri because he belongs to a select group of magistrates.”
“The ruling says in recital 36: judicially validating a new type of appointment or definitive designation to fill a position of judge outside the sequence (competition, nomination and agreement) would mean violating the National Constitution. In such case, the reasons for the departure must be explained,” added the man from Rio Negro.
Along these lines, Soria stated that “coincidentally, in this government there are the same officials who were in the Macri regime and who allowed the colonization of the Judiciary in Argentina, hiring and transferring a select group of judges, which generated what is known as the party of the judiciary.”
“This group of magistrates was part of the assembly of trout cases, they endorsed illegal espionage, they illegally deprived public officials, they invented incredible doctrines and theories,” denounced the senator from Río Negro. And he asked Mahiques if he believes that his judicial independence has not been affected.
To which Mahiques responded: “It is not a new appointment but an extension. I do not take responsibility for any of the complaints that he makes in general to a select group to which I never belonged. I have served the State not for an ideological reason but for a contribution of a technical nature and experience. My prologue is my past.”
The memory of the controversial trip to Lago Escondido
The response came from both Fernández Sagasti and Soria. The senators accused Machiques of “lack of ethics for having accepted benefits from a business group with direct interests in the courts of which you are a member.”
In that sense, Soria pointed out that that trip, in the year 2022, “exposed promiscuous links between large media outlets, espionage figures, judicial officials and magnates who put the house on the line.”
The magistrate defended himself. “I was very careful to verify, when we made that trip with friends, that no company financed me,” he excused himself. He also reiterated that “I did not ask for leave because the only court that has jurisdiction in the entire country is the Federal Cassation and consequently, in some way, I continued working.”
“On the criminal side, it was decided to dismiss those accused due to the lack of crimes and it was the President of the Republic himself (Alberto Fernández), at that time, who recognized in official communication that part of the evidence acquired had been illegally,” he concluded.
