A thorny legal case, in which constitutional and procedural interpretations intersect, and even personal interestswas resolved this Friday by the criminal chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Neuquén in favor of the prosecution.
As a main effect, the collateral depending on where the observer stands fromthe ruling of the room represents a relief: now acquire certainty an incalculable number of files whose future depended on this resolution.
The case is very delicate, because it is a crime against sexual integrity. A man was charged (the first hearing provided for in the Criminal Procedure Code), then the accusation control, then the trial, he was declared responsible and he was sentenced.
When reviewing the ruling, the Appeals Tribunal made up of Richard Trincheri, Florencia Martini and Andrés Repetto, canceled the whole process. From the arraignment hearing onwards. all.
illegal intervention
Because? because it was discovered that A lawyer from the prosecutor’s office participated in that hearing, “without legal powers” to do so, the Impugnation judges said.
The legal officer attended that hearing for a verbal designation of the (already retired) Chief Prosecutor Fernando Rubio. According to the Court of Appeal, the Constitution of the province of Neuquén prohibits that delegation of tasks.
yes but
The member Alfredo Elosu Larumbe, a member of the TSJ criminal chamber, affirmed in his ruling to which Evaldo Moya adheres that “can be discussed Yes, Rubio, in order to coordinate the activity of the case prosecutor and provide him with support, was able to verbally assign a specific and specific function to the Prosecutor to attend a hearing in which the case prosecutor should intervene».
But what is clear, in my opinion, is that that delegation is not unconstitutional nor is it related to the nullity referred to in the local Magna Carta, since said clause tends to protect the republican system and with it, to the separation of the governmental powers».
The political context
Prosecution officials have participated in numerous indictment hearings. If the Superior Court of Justice had agreed with the criteria of the Court of Appeal and declared the nullity, the effect on the system would have been unpredictable and all eyes would have been on the prosecution.
That is why there is no shortage of those who read this procedural fencing in a more political context: that of the historic confrontation between a sector of the magistrates and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Day by daybetween the members Elosu Larumbe and Evaldo Moya – Soledad Gennari joins – there is communion of interests with Attorney General José Gerez. This judgment of the criminal court comes to prove it.