POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Controversy Erupts with Menem’s Release

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 21 2001 (IPS) - Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice ordered the release of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) from five months’ house arrest on arms trafficking charges, a move likely to make prosecutors and judges think twice before accusing political leaders of corruption.

Menem enjoyed his first public appearance Wednesday after being notified of his release Tuesday. His political supporters cheered him on while his opponents protested and launched criticisms against the Supreme Court ruling.

The former president was under investigation for his alleged role in arms trafficking to Croatia, subject at the time to an international weapons embargo, and to Ecuador during its border war with Peru, while Argentina was serving as a guarantor of peace between the two nations.

Legal experts predict that the ruling will serve as a warning for those who seek to investigate government corruption in the future. Judges, public prosecutors and journalists were the target of veiled criticism in the high court’s ruling.

The Supreme Court stated Tuesday that there was insufficient evidence that an “illicit association” existed for the purpose of arms smuggling, a decision which led to the release of Menem and of his former adviser Emir Yoma, who had been indicted as chief and organiser of the alleged weapons-trafficking group.

Menem will continue under investigation for arms trafficking and illicit enrichment, but charges for these lesser crimes would not require him to be imprisoned while awaiting trial.

In Argentina’s legal circles, however, many wonder who now would dare take action on the charges pending against the former president.

With six votes in favour, two against and one abstention, the Supreme Court justices rejected the notion of “illicit association”, which it said the lower courts used in a bid “to satisfy public opinion by presenting themselves as champions of the anti-corruption fight.”

The ruling should have responded exclusively to a petition presented by Yoma, who is also Menem’s former brother-in-law. But the pronouncement by the court on the existence of the illicit association compelled the Federal Chamber – the second instance of appeal – and the judge in the lower court to back down from the charges.

Federal judge Jorge Urso, who had ordered Menem’s house arrest in June, announced his immediate release and even issued an apology, apparently in response to threats of reprisal from the former president’s defenders. “Know that I never intended to cause him harm,” said the judge.

One of Menem’s lawyers, Oscar Salvi, said last week that Urso and the public prosecutor on the case, Carlos Stornelli, “would have to pay” for putting his client in prison. Salvi also announced legal action against a lawmaker who tried to have members of the Supreme Court recused from the case.

Deputy Elisa Carrió had petitioned the Justice Ministry to remove two of the nine justices due to their known personal links to Menem.

One of the judges, Julio Nazareno, shared a law office with Menem in the 1970s, and the other, Adolfo Vázquez, has acknowledged his close friendship with the former president.

But Justice Minister Jorge de la Rúa, brother of President Fernando de la Rúa, stated that “the legal requirements for granting such a request had not been satisfied.”

President De la Rúa himself stressed that his government had not played any role in the court decision. “We have nothing to do with it,” he said.

The centre-left president was apparently attempting to fend off suspicions that his administration had promoted the release of his predecessor in an attempt to fuel conflicts between Menem and other major figures of his Justicialista (Peronist) Party, the main opposition force.

This interpretation was put forth by attorney Ricardo Monner Sanz, who first denounced Menem and his associates on charges of arms smuggling in 1995.

Monner Sanz said the high court decision is an attempt to bury his accusations and has caused “indignation” in the judicial sphere for the cautionary tone taken by the high court justices, all nine of whom were designated to their posts during the Menem government.

The Supreme Court ruling urges reflection among judges and public prosecutors who “intervene in cases with significant repercussions and who face a public opinion – whether spontaneously formed or oriented by the media – that is particularly sensitive to real or supposed acts of corruption.”

Judges and prosecutors, says the text, should “pay special attention to the legal framing of the acts attributed to officials or former officials.”

This was among the paragraphs that came under loudest criticism from judges and journalists. “It is an attempt now to accuse those who are the message bearers,” Daniel Santoro, winner in 1995 of the King of Spain’s international journalism prize for his investigation into the illegal arms sales, told the Argentine daily ‘Clarín’.

Experts warned that the ruling would deepen the cynicism of a large portion of the population. “Argentine society’s tiny light of hope for an independent judiciary faded away with this decision by the high court, which has always operated based on the interests in power,” commented Monner Sanz.

A survey conducted by the Analogías firm and published over the weekend, prior to the ruling, showed that 63 percent of those polled would disapprove of a court decision to release Menem, 21 percent said they had no opinion, and just 16 percent said they were in favour.

Andrés D’Alessio, dean of the University of Buenos Aires law school, said the ruling is “very unfortunate… The sensation that stands out is the supremacy of impunity, something the Argentine people have been feeling for some time, and this decision only helps consolidate it.”

In the arms trafficking case, the legal use of “illicit association” could be debated on technical grounds, but the Federal Chamber had invoked it because there was strong suggestion of Menem’s guilt, and it was one of the few tools available that allowed the court to order detention while he awaited trial, explained D’Alessio.

Nevertheless, he considers it “regrettable” that the Supreme Court would use the ruling to challenge the Federal Chamber in this way. The seriousness and good intentions of the federal court should not have been called into doubt by the higher court, he said.

The decision implies that the lower courts had incurred in “areas apparently sheathed in legality but definitely illegal,” which the Supreme Court surreptitiously compared to “the illegal repressions of the past,” committed by Argentina’s most recent military dictatorship (1976-1983), said D’Alessio.

News of the Supreme Court’s decision was received with an uproar of approval at the mansion where Menem lived under detention since June 7. In Argentina, inmates over 70 have the right to serve their time under house arrest.

Upon his release, Menem, accompanied by Cecilia Bolocco, the Chilean television personality and former beauty queen he married last May, went to visit his son’s grave and then headed to his home province, La Rioja, where his supporters were preparing a celebratory reception.

Although Menem continues to hold great weight among Peronists, political analysts and pollsters agree that he will never be able to rebuild his public image enough to have a shot at the presidency in 2003, a goal Menem himself assures is within his reach.