Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering

Supreme Court creates group of experts to help probe corruption.

By Luciana Bertoia

 Herald Staff

The most recent resolutions out of the Supreme Court appear to have an unifying theme: a general tone of opposition to the Executive.

The country’s highest tribunal yesterday decided to move forward with creating a group of experts to examine cases of crimes of corruption at a time when opposition lawmakers insist that Kirchnerite officials are trying to make themselves immune to corruption cases that are being investigated in the courts.

A day after lawmakers from Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front and the Broad Front UNEN said that the Kirchnerite administration was sponsoring a reform of the Criminal Procedural Code to benefit officials who could face charges in courts for their activity while in office, the country’s top tribunal yesterday wanted to make clear that judges are willing to investigate those possible allegations.

The unveiling of the new expert body also comes at a time when there is increasing criticism from the opposition about how slowly some of the judicial investigations of government officials is progressing.

The Court will hire 10 experts — including lawyers, accountants and engineers — through open competitive testing to investigate corruption cases over the next few months. They will join the 13 other accountants who act as advisers to the criminal judges who are investigating these types of cases.

The decision comes a week after the highest tribunal issued a resolution agreeing that former lawmaker Ricardo Gil Lavedra has the right to receive sensitive information about the Ciccone Calcográfica mint case. Vice-President Amado Boudou, who is indicted in the Ciccone case is also being investigated for alleged embezzlement and experts from the Court are taking part in the analysis.

“There are cases on money-laundering and there are no legal experts who can examine them,” a court source yesterday explained to the Herald minutes after four justices issued the administrative resolution.

The same source was asked whether the courts were receiving more cases these days but declined to comment.

“This is a problem that has been increasing,” the source said. In fact, over the past few days the Attorney General’s Economic Crime and Money Laundering Unit (Procelac) headed by prosecutor Carlos Gonella has been making headlines, leaving judges on the back burner.

The resolution was adopted yesterday by Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti, Deputy Chief Justice Elena Highton de Nolasco and Justices Carlos Fayt and Juan Carlos Maqueda. Justice Eugenio Zaffaroni, who after the death of Enrique Petracchi announced his retirement, did not take part in the weekly meeting yesterday.

Rivalry

Court sources explained that justices have been discussing this issue for the past six months, apparently at the behest of judges. In a conference three weeks ago, Lorenzetti said the country lacked a policy to fight crime and drug-trafficking, which led to a response from Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich, who wondered why judges do not pay income tax.

According to the administrative resolution, “criminal magistrates” are allowed to request the experts’ aide but it is not clear whether they will assist prosecutors.

“We see this resolution of the Court as an act of resistance,” a source from the ministry led by Julio Alak yesterday told the Herald.

Last week, the Court also sent a message in tune with the opposition when a source from the highest tribunal said that justices thought the court could operate well with four or even three members after Radical senators said they were not going to vote for Zaffaroni’s successor before Fernández de Kirchner leaves office at the end of 2015.