Wednesday May 10, 2023 | 7:17 p.m.
After Javier Carbajo, one of the three judges that make up Chamber IV of the Criminal Cassation Chamber, decided to excuse himself in the case for the direction of public works in Santa Cruz, the response of his colleagues appeared. Judges Gustavo Hornos and Mariano Borinsky rejected the recusal of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and will continue to lead the Roads case.
However, both Hornos and Borinsky accepted Carbajo’s excuse for not intervening in the case and a draw process will be opened for a new judge to join the room in his place. Javier Carbajo decided to withdraw from the case last week, a few hours after Cristina Kirchner’s appeal for TOF sentence No. 2 issued on December 6.
The defense of the vice president maintained that the magistrates had already intervened in the case and that they had no partiality for his visits to Mauricio Macri when he was president of the Nation. But, in a 13-page resolution, the judges rejected this proposal “in limine”.
“The abstract affirmations outlined by the defenses, as grounds to seek the removal of the natural judges from the case, can only be rejected in light of the doctrine established by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in matters of independence of this Power Judicial”, maintains the text signed by the Cassation judges.
There is a new appeal instance for the defenses of Cristina Kirchner and Nelson Periotti -former head of the National Highway Directorate, also convicted in the public works case-: the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. Until that happens, the case can advance from hearings to hear the positions of the parties. It is estimated that the cause will advance only in 2024.
In the case of Carbajo, he argued that his excuse was to “protect impartiality.” He recalled that in his ruling on the Money Route, he considered that “the previous act from which the goods originate does not need to have been a guilty and punishable act, but it is enough that it was typical and unlawful, that is, an illegal act.” and it considered that “the causal link between the laundering operation and the maneuvers described in the jurisdictional proceedings of merit and in the requirements of the Public Prosecutor’s Office was proven in those records, with the degree of knowledge necessary in that instance.”
