The strong political and legal fight with which the national government and the Buenos Aires Executive close the year after the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJN), which ordered the Nation to allocate 2.95 percent of the volume of co-participating taxes to the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), will have new judicial chapters in the coming days, pending the presentations that both President Alberto Fernández and the mayor of the capital, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, have already promised to make.
Within this framework, the national government will present next week in the Court a request for revocation “in extremis” of the precautionary resolutionalthough perhaps not on Monday as was initially considered.
The City of Buenos Aires will do the same before the highest court, also on a date to be determined, but to request that the ruling be complied with.
Taking into account that there will be four business days left Before the judicial fair, the highest court in the country must decide whether or not to open that instance for this case or pass it directly to deal with it from February.
For now, through the agreed 32/2022, the Supreme Court appointed the fair authorities on the 5th of this month for the judicial recess next January: Juan Carlos Maquedafrom January 1 to 15; Ricardo Lorenzettifrom 1 to 8 of the same month; Horace Rosatti, from January 16 to 31; Y Carlos Rosenkrantzfrom the 23rd to the 31st of that month.
However, Rodríguez Larreta anticipated this Saturday that he has “expectation that the money will be transferred on Monday, because the President cannot give an order contrary to what the Court says”.
In addition to the revocation, the Government announced last Thursday in a statement the recusal of the members of the CourtTherefore, these resolutions should be resolved by co-judges. “The President of the Nation has decided to instruct the competent bodies of the National State to challenge the members of the Supreme Court and to present the request for revocation ‘in extremis’ of the precautionary resolution issued,” the Executive Power indicated in that letter, after a meeting held between the President and 14 governors at Casa Rosada.
“In an unprecedented, incongruous, and impossible-to-enforce ruling, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, without justifying the way in which it builds said amount, decides to increase that percentage to 2.95; that is, it grants the City of Buenos Aires more than 180 billion pesos in addition to what it already receives,” the government argued in that notification.
The document carried the signatures of the Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof; Gildo Insfrán from Formosa, Gustavo Bordet from Entre Ríos, Ricardo Quintela from La Rioja, Osvaldo Jaldo from Tucumán and Raúl Jalil from Catamarca, Sergio Uñac from San Juan, Gerardo Zamora from Santiago, Mariano Arcioni from Chubut and Sergio Ziliotto from Pampas, present at a meeting held in the Eva Perón Hall of Government House.
They were joined virtually, and also signed, the governor of Chaco Jorge Capitanichthe fuegian Gustavo Melellathe sanluiseño Alberto Rodriguez Saa and the Santa Cruz Alice Kirchner. On Friday, the governors Gustavo Saenz (jumps), Arabela Carreras (Black river), Omar Gutierrez (Neuquen) and Oscar Herrera Ahuad (Misiones) also joined the questioning of the Court’s ruling, through a joint statement.
The governors did not sign Gerardo Morales (Jujuy), Rodolfo Suarez (Mendoza), Gustavo Valdes (currents), Juan Schiaretti (Cordoba) and Omar Perotti (Santa Fe).
Last Thursday’s meeting between the President and the governors was also attended by the Minister of the Interior, Edward of Peter; the legal and technical secretaries, vilma ibarra; and General of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello; and the deputy chief of staff, Juan Manuel Olmos.
The four members of the highest court signed last Wednesday a precautionary measure requested by the Buenos Aires Government, which in practical terms will make the payments of that 2.95% be made “daily and automatically” by the Banco de la Nación Argentina, and suspends law 27,606 that granted 2.32%; but it did not resolve the underlying issue.
THE ORIGIN OF THE CONFLICT
The origin of the controversy dates back to 2016, when then-President Mauricio Macri signed a decree that increased CABA’s share from 1.4% to 3.75% for federal co-participation. Then, with another decree, the founder of the PRO modified that number and set it at 3.5%.
The explanation of the Government of Cambiemos at that time was that the amount responded to the “Progressive Transfer Agreement to the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires of powers and security functions in all non-federal matters exercised” in the city.
According to this proposal, the district commanded by Rodriguez Larreta it demanded 112 billion pesos for a force of 19,000 agents, something that contrasts with the 70 billion pesos that the Federal Police receives for its 32,000 troops.
In 2020, that percentage was reduced and a law was enacted in Congress to set the amount that should be paid to the City.
“Currently, according to Law 27,606 in force and approved by the National Congress, the City of Buenos Aires receives, as it has done since 2002, the equivalent of 1.4% of the total co-participating funds and, in addition, the amount equivalent to the operating cost of the Buenos Aires City police that was transferred to it in 2016,” recalled the Government in the document signed on Thursday by Fernández and the governors.
