Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Monday appealed her conviction for corruption to Argentina’s Supreme Court, petitioning the nation’s highest tribunal to reverse the ruling and quash her six-year prison sentence and ban on holding elected office.
Defence lawyers for the veteran politician also took aim at one of the Supreme Court justices who will hear the case, arguing the magistrate is not fit to participate, given he was appointed by decree to his post by President Javier Milei.
Fernández de Kirchner, 72, was found guilty of corruption offences in 2022 in the first instance as part of the so-called ‘Vialidad’ trial probing graft centred on public works projects during her two terms (2007-2015) as head of state.
The former president, who denies the allegations against her and described the trial as a political witch-hunt perpetrated by a “legal mafia,” was found guilty of the crime of “fraudulent administration to the detriment of the state.”
Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years in prison and a lifetime ban from holding political office, a ruling confirmed in the second instance by a higher court in November, 2024.
If the challenge is admitted, the Supreme Court – currently composed of Justices Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, Ricardo Lorenzetti and Manuel García-Mansilla – will allow the Attorney-General's Office (led by Eduardo Casal) to intervene and issue a ruling.
If the Supreme Court rejects the opposition leader’s appeal, the conviction becomes final. However, she is likely to serve jail time given that she can request house arrest due to her age.
Fernández de Kirchner was required to file an appeal by April 1. The complaint is based on the grounds that “the guarantee of being judged by independent and impartial judges has been violated.”
Justices challenged
As well as her appeal, defence lawyers for the ex-president also filed a challenge against the authority of Judge Manuel García-Mansilla, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in February by decree.
Lawyers for the ex-president described his appointment by decree as a “violation of the National Constitution,” given Supreme Court justices must be approved by Congress.
García-Mansilla’s appointment – as well as fellow Supreme Court nominee Ariel Lijo – was to be debated by the Senate on Thursday, though Milei’s ruling party does not yet have the votes to secure their approval.
Ramping up her complaints of political and judicial persecution, Fernández de Kirchner – who also served as vice-president from 2019 to 2023 and is now the main opposition leader – complained on Monday that Milei had declared in a radio interview that she “is going to go to jail.”
The former president said in a post on the X social network that this statement constituted “an undue and intolerable interference in judicial matters.”
Fernández de Kirchner has been a staunch opponent of President Milei's policy of deregulation and slashing public spending.
Milei came to power on a tide of disaffection with the Peronist movement, which has dominated Argentine politics for most of the country's post-war history and has been led by Fernández de Kirchner for the past two decades.
The former president is also the target of several other investigations for alleged money-laundering and obstruction of justice. She denies all the charges against her and says she is a victim of a campaign of judicial and political persecution.
‘Not independent’
One of the former president's lawyers, Carlos Beraldi, said last Monday that the sentence in the so-called ‘Causa Vialidad’ lacks a legal basis.
Speaking at a press conference at the headquarters of the Partido Justicialista, the main Peronist party which Fernándeez de Kirchner now chairs, Beraldi said the judges and prosecutors involved in the process “are not independent and impartial of political power”
He criticised Milei’s previous remarks, describing them as “a “serious matter in the handling of judicial cases” and something that a ruling head of state is “prohibited” from saying.
Beraldi also said that there is “no possibility” of the former president going to jail, adding that, since he has been advising her, “Cristina has never been afraid,” that she is fully aware of her actions as head of state and that this trial is taking place “because she carried out many reforms which have not been forgiven.”
The Supreme Court does not have a specific deadline to issue a ruling. Asked about the change of a resolution in the short term, Beraldi replied that “this possibility does not exist” because there are already 10 appeals filed with the Supreme Court.
"From a legal point of view, there is no possibility that this will be resolved quickly, unless it is an operation which has nothing to do with the law," Beraldi said.
Conviction
Fernández de Kirchner was first sentenced in 2022 for alleged corruption in the awarding of public works projects during her presidency. Those convictions were upheld last year by a higher court, which subsequently reviewed the verdicts for the ex-president and the 12 other defendants in the case.
During the trial, prosecutors denounced "a system of institutional corruption,” identifying "systematic irregularities in 51 calls for tender" over 12 years.
The period investigated includes her eight years in office and the preceding four years when her late husband Néstor Kirchner, who died in 2010, was president.
Most of the alleged corruption focused on their political fiefdom of southern Santa Cruz Province.
During the original trial, prosecutors alleged that between 2003 and 2015, 80 percent of national public works projects in Santa Cruz were steered towards companies owned or operated by Lázaro Báez, a government-aligned business tycoon.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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