RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Activists Prepare Case Against Supreme Court

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 18 1998 (IPS) - A human rights group in Argentina is preparing a request for a political trial of the Supreme Court, which ruled against a woman’s right to learn the truth about what happened to her daughter, who was “disappeared” during the 1976- 83 military dictatorship.

The 35-line ruling, issued last Thursday, “has no basis and sets an extremely grave precedent, as well as exposing the state to the risk of sanctions from international courts,” Simon Lazara, president of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly (PHRA), told IPS.

The PHRA plans to request a political trial of the Supreme Court on the basis of “poor performance.” Other lawsuits have been filed against the Supreme Court on charges of partiality and collusion with executive branch interests since the government of Carlos Menem expanded the number of magistrates from five to nine in 1990, giving government supporters a majority within the court.

Last Thursday, five of the nine judges ruled inadmissible a case brought by Carmen Lapaco who is seeking to learn the fate of her daughter Alejandra. The university student was taken from her home in 1977 along with her boyfriend, cousin and mother Carmen by a group of 12 uniformed individuals.

Carmen Lapaco was released three days later along with her nephew, but Alejandra and her boyfriend never left the clandestine detention centre that operated in a federal police station in Buenos Aires.

Since then Lapaco has been a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a rights group seeking to discover the truth about what happened to individuals who were “disappeared” by security forces.

She attempted to bring those responsible for the disappearance of her daughter to trial. But when two amnesty laws were passed in the late 1980s under then-president Raul Alfonsin, and Menem pardoned the dictatorship’s military commanders in 1990, all possible routes through which justice could be administered were closed.

In 1995 she filed a lawsuit to find out what happened to her daughter, a right recognised by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Lazara pointed out that Lapaco’s demand to learn the truth cannot be diverted to an executive branch entity, as the Supreme Court attempted to do through last Thursday’s ruling.

One of the magistrates who signed the majority decision argued that such cases had been closed by the pardon and the amnesty laws, and that any further investigation must be handled outside of the judiciary.

Another of the magistrates, Eduardo Moline O’Connor, said Tuesday that the Supreme Court “did not deny the possibility of learning the fate of a disappeared individual, but pointed out” that the courts “were not the appropriate route for obtaining the information sought.

“It is a distortion to state that the Supreme Court decision closed the door to further investigations,” added Moline O’Connor, who expressed his annoyance at the hasty reaction of rights groups when a ruling of this sort “requires months of study.”

Lazara called the judge’s remarks “absurd,” saying a ruling of only 35 lines did not demand lengthy study. “I think they got scared by our request for a political trial and tried to change the sense of what they really said.”

Interior Minister Carlos Corach, meanwhile, said the judges were in a position to investigate the truth without infringing on the amnesty laws. He added that such proceedings would be at least slight compensation for the families of the victims.

During the 1976-83 military dictatorship, alleged subversives and opponents were subjected to harsh repression, and security forces committed abductions, torture, theft and appropriation of minors. Rights groups put the number of disappeared at 30,000, although reports have been filed in some 11,000 cases.

Lapaco said her daughter was studying anthropology at the time of her abduction, and was politically active in the university in the Justice Party, in power today. She recalled that the last time she saw her in the detention centre, Alejandra told her “mama, I’m going to die, I can’t stand the torture anymore” – the last words Lapaco heard from her daughter 21 years ago.

Those responsible for her disappearance are at liberty today. Based on the testimony of survivors, Lapaco believes Alejandra was dumped alive into the sea from a navy or army helicopter, as were thousands of other detainees.

“I’m not asking that the perpetrators be tried, not because I don’t want them to be brought to justice, but because the laws of impunity make that impossible,” said Lapaco. “But to be told in 35 lines that I don’t have the right to find out the truth seems to me a mockery designed by accomplices of the military.”