No wonder that Pope Francis escaped legal scrutiny for abuse cover-up. Argentinian Judiciary and Francis were in a Peronist mutual admiration society.
Judges pay tribute to Pope Francis, reaffirming his political commitment to addressing injustice
Judge Roberto Gallardo, head of the court, and former Supreme Court member Raúl Zaffaroni led the meeting in Santiago del Estero, which recalled the late Pope's message on the role of justice in society. Criticisms of libertarian administration and economic adjustment were raised.
With a clear call for judges to assume their role as political actors, with an urgent responsibility in the face of social injustice, authoritarianism, and the suffering of the most vulnerable, the national meeting in homage to Pope Francis, organized by the Argentine Chapter of the Pan-American Committee of Judges for Social Rights and Franciscan Doctrine (COPAJU), began this Thursday in the city of Santiago del Estero.
"Francis taught us that judges, in addition to being judges, had a political dimension; "Not partisan politics, but a political dimension, which implies being able to understand the context, being able to decide with your feet on the ground, not with your feet on the carpet, at a desk," said Judge Roberto Andrés Gallardo, president of COPAJU, in his welcoming remarks. He was heard by the nearly 500 people who filled the Óvalo del Parque Sur convention center in Santiago del Estero, the capital of Santiago del Estero. He was mostly judges from across the country, provincial and religious authorities, along with those who followed the event broadcast on YouTube.
For his part, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, former Supreme Court justice and director of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Institute (IFBC), the academic branch of COPAJU, warned that in the current context, "it's not that the State is shrinking; What it diminishes is its social function and hypertrophies its repressive function." And he warned that, "recently, punitive power is also being used to remove popular leaders who are inconvenient from the political scene. It's the lawfare that Francis denounced."
COPAJU is a space founded in 2019 under the inspiration of the Argentine Pope, which brings together members of judicial branches from across the Americas. Under the motto "The Franciscan Path in the Face of the Crisis of Civilization," COPAJU Argentina convened this national meeting—which continued this Friday—together with the Judiciary and the Association of Magistrates and Judicial Officials of Santiago del Estero.
In the welcome speech, Gallardo was accompanied by the president of the Provincial Superior Court of Justice, Federico López Alzogaray; and the Cardinal of Santiago del Estero, Vicente Bokalic Iglic. "I want to highlight Francis's activity as centered and immovable in the principle of equity and balance that constitutes the foundation of justice," López Alzogaray emphasized. Bokalic Iglic added that, "at a time when human dignity has been put on hold and human rights ignored and even ridiculed; When the trampling of the rights of the weak by the powerful is a reality that seems unstoppable, independent and honest judges are the last hope of the humble.” The Cardinal Primate of Argentina considered that “it is the crossroads of upholding one's convictions against the majority trend that opts for easy solutions of more punishment, more repression, or that resolves the rights of the most vulnerable with purely budgetary criteria.”
At the opening of the event, Misiones judge César Raúl Jiménez, coordinator of COPAJU Argentina, stated: “We are not here to passively describe the crisis; we are here to commit to transforming it.” A Correctional and Juvenile Judge from Posadas, Jiménez affirmed that “Francis's words today resonate strongly in Argentina, where the crisis is not abstract: it is the hunger at empty tables, the violence in the neighborhoods, the loneliness of young people.” expelled from work and school, the lack of protection for children and adolescents who end up in court after the State and society's care networks have collapsed."
Along the same lines, Judge Darío Alejandro Alarcón, president of the Association of Magistrates and Judicial Officials of Santiago del Estero, stated that “in a world marked by profound asymmetries, where wealth is held by a few while millions are discarded, the words of the Holy Father speak volumes.” He stated that the objective of the tribute to Pope Francis is “to take up this ethical challenge of rethinking the role of the judiciary as guarantor of social rights and as a limit to authoritarianism,” in a context of “a social, ecological, and humanitarian crisis that the Pope describes as one and the same: a civilizational crisis.”
“Do not look away”
Recalling Francis's insistence on “not looking away,” Gallardo sent a clear message: “We cannot silence what is happening in our country today, because if we do, we become accomplices.” The judge referred to the need to go beyond legitimacy of origin to demonstrate legitimacy in the exercise of power. “I invite you to ask yourselves what legitimacy of exercise a government has that attacks retirees, that takes away essential aid from people with disabilities, that treats social justice with foul language,” he stated.
Later, in his lecture “Francisco and the Signs of the Crisis of Civilization,” Gallardo stated: “We judges are organs of the political power of the State, even if some leaders don't like it. These rulings are political decisions.”
In front of an attentive audience filled with public officials, law students, and the general public, Zaffaroni referred to a “selectivity” in the application of justice “that is shamelessly spreading today, saying, ‘I'm going to get rid of any political leader who bothers me in order to carry out this project of a repressive State, a State that is increasingly ceasing to be social and becoming a criminal State.’” The former judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated that "these cuts and these omissions in the social aspect cause deaths," in what he described as "a kind of trickle-down genocide," under the slogan "let the inferiors die."
In his dissertation, titled "Criminal Law in the Face of Authoritarianism," Zaffaroni dismantled the appeal to a supposed "bloodbath" as a basis for punitivism. "The irresponsible man we have as a president," he maintained, "says there's a bloodbath, to which I respond that what we have is a psychosis. Homicide in Argentina has been on the decline for the last ten years. We are the country with the second lowest homicide rate on the continent. The lowest rate is Canada. And in Latin America, we have the lowest rate. That's the reality."
This session included a panel on "State, Social Rights, and Democracy," with the participation of Trelew judge Ivana Wolansky, a member of COPAJU Argentina, who spoke about the State and "the obligation to judge with a child perspective"; Santiago del Estero judge Roxana Cejas Ramírez, who gave a talk on "Crime and Dignity. Rethinking Human Trafficking in the Age of Human Rights"; Horacio Guillermo Corti, First Vice President of the Buenos Aires Judicial Council, who discussed "Social Rights Today"; and Marisa Graham, former National Defender of the Rights of Children and Adolescents, who spoke about "Childhood, Capitalism, Dehumanization, and Screens."
Cathcon: The Pontificate of Francis was always all to do with Argentinian politics and nothing to do with Catholicism. An Argentinian halo does not make a saint.
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