Proscription or democracy in Argentina
From the CLACSO Working Group on Legal Critique and Sociopolitical Conflicts We want to express our strongest condemnation of the attempt at political proscription being perpetrated by the judicial-media power in alliance with the concentrated sectors of the economy against the Vice President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Latin America is once again witnessing the maneuvering and manipulation of judicial powers. In Argentina, through a trial riddled with irregularities and lacking due process—known as the “Vialidad Case”—a verdict was handed down sentencing Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, two-time president of the nation, to six years in prison and a lifetime ban from holding public office. During the trial, the principle of due process was violated, evidence and expert witnesses were questioned, and the sentence was issued by a court aligned with the business and financial elites, who simply seek to eradicate and destroy the political, social, and cultural processes that challenge their privileges.
Our region has experienced democratization processes with the arrival of progressive governments since the end of the last century in Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Each of these countries, with its own specific characteristics, implemented income redistribution policies that resulted in visible improvements for the working class. This led to strong confrontations with economic groups and media oligopolies, historically allied with dictatorial governments and neoliberal projects. These same powerful interests, which used the judicial system and legal warfare to persecute and stigmatize Lula da Silva in Brazil and Jorge Glas and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, are also behind the conviction of Cristina Kirchner.
We know that all these maneuvers disguised as "legal" have as their main objective to influence political-electoral processes and eliminate leaders who are not in accordance with the interests of the most concentrated capital.
We condemn the attack on democratic and republican values issued by Judges Jorge Gorini, Andrés Basso, and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu. Furthermore, we emphatically express the need to democratize the judiciary in Latin America, a classist, patriarchal, and racist power that, in alliance with media, economic, and geopolitical sectors, applies the lawfare and the misuse of legal tools and the law for prosecution.
Today in Argentina the rule of law and democracy are in danger, therefore, as researchers, teachers, lawyers and attorneys we demand the full enforcement of constitutional principles and human rights.
December 11th 2022
CLACSO Working Group on Legal Critique and Sociopolitical Conflicts
This statement expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group on Legal Critique and Sociopolitical Conflicts and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
