Milei appoints Lijo, García-Mansilla to Supreme Court by decree

President Javier Milei has announced the “provisional” appointment of judges Manuel García-Mansilla and Ariel Lijo to the Supreme Court by decree.

Argentina’s Supreme Court, the nation’s highest tribunal, currently has two vacancies following the departure of two justices last year.

The appointment of both justices will last “until the end of the next legislative period” in December, the government said in a statement.

The decision comes after both nominations stalled in Congress. According to Milei’s office, the nominations of both magistrates were submitted last May after fulfilling all the required procedural stages, including public hearings last August. 

However, the Senate has not formally considered the appointments, despite the necessary legal steps having been met, the government complained.

The Constitution allows for appointment by decree when the Senate does not act, a practice used in previous governments.

The Executive Branch will continue with the legislative process so that the upper house can define its position on the candidates. The Senate can still reverse Milei’s decree.

The decree has “the objective of normalising the functioning of the highest court,” said the government. “We will not allow political interests to be imposed on the Argentine people.”

Lijo was selected last March by Milei to fill a vacancy, with the President also announcing that García-Mansilla would replace Juan Carlos Maqueda once he retired late last year.

The news met with a mixed reaction. 

While ruling party politicians cheered the move, Milei critic Elisa 'Lilita Carrió, the former leader of the Coalición Cívica, described it as a "true horror" from an "institutional and republican" point of view. 

She highlighted Lijo's appointment as "a corruption scandal of national and international magnitude."

“They are de facto judges and that is how they should be treated,” said constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Romero in an interview with the LN+ news channel on Tuesday. 

He predicted that once ordinary sessions of Congress open on March 1, the Senate would move to reject the appointments by decree.

For Gil Romero, the process “is absolutely null and void” and “unconstitutional.”

 

Constitutional?

Attempting to head off such criticism, the Executive Branch noted that the National Constitution indeed grants the President authority to nominate Supreme Court justices. 

Milei's government also issued a timeline to outline why it had resorted to appointment by decree, highlighting that the nominations were announced last March and formalised last April. All files were with the Senate as of May 27, 2024, it added.

The President ultimately decided to move forward with the appointments despite not having achieved the two-thirds majority necessary to support his proposals to refill the Supreme Court, it said.

Finally, the Casa Rosada argued that “‘the Supreme Court cannot function properly with only three justices.” 

The Senate is responsible for either approving or rejecting the nominations based on an assessment of suitability.

Lijo and García Mansilla were resisted by sectors of the Peronist opposition, as well as caucuses that often support the ruling party in Congress.

Lijo could now request a leave of absence from his federal court in order to take up his new post. However, there are sectors of the Judiciary and opposition that are demanding he resign his post.

In the statement, Milei’s office called out the “politicisation of the Judiciary,” stating it is “one of the main reasons why Argentines do not have an efficient judicial system.”

The last head of state to appoint Supreme Court justices by decree was former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), who named Horacio Rosatti and Carlos Rosenkrantz to the nation’s top court just five days after taking office.

Following an angry reaction from the opposition and amid criticism from constitutional lawyers, he rolled back the measure. The justices’ nominations later won Senate approval.

 

Nominees

Ariel Lijo, 56, has a long track record in the Judiciary and currently leads one of the top 12 Comodoro Py federal courthouses.

Named as a federal judge in 2004, he quickly became involved in a number of politically sensitive cases, including investigations into alleged irregularities into the investigation of the 1994 AMIA Jewish community centre bombing, for which he sent former president Carlos Menem, former SIDE chief Hugo Anzorreguy and former judge Juan José Galeano to trial.

He was also involved in cases probing human rights violations during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, including disappearances and torture related to Army Battalion 601 and the assassination of late former CGT secretary-general José Ignacio Rucci dating back to 1973. 

Perhaps his most high-profile case involved former vice-president Amado Boudou, who was investigated over his role in the fraudulent acquisition of Ciccone Calcografica, the only facility in Argentina with the capacity to print legal tender.

Lijo, who is close to current Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti, has also investigated a number of former officials and businessmen for alleged money-laundering via electoral campaign contributions.

Nevertheless, his appointment has been questioned by anti-corruption campaigners.

Constitutional scholar Manuel José García-Mansilla, 54, is the dean of the Universidad Austral, which Rosenkrantz, the Supreme Court’s vice-president, also attended. 

On his CV, he describes himself as a "specialist in constitutional law, oil and gas and business law." 

He supported Macri’s controversial 2015 move to appoint Rosenkrantz and Rossati to the nation’s highest tribunal by decree and strongly criticised an attempt by the previous Alberto Fernández government to impeach sitting justices.

García-Mansilla has some claim to Argentina’s storied history: the "García" in his surname comes from José, a minister during the presidency of Bernardino Rivadavia; the "Mansilla" comes from Lucio N. Mansilla, hero of the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado in 1845.

 

– TIMES/NA/PERFIL