Reopening of cases of “victims of terrorism”: the perspective of constitutionalists, the Rome Statute and the precedent of ETA

The promises that the Vice President Victoria Villarruel The Senate’s statement regarding the reopening of cases of “victims of terrorism” generated mixed reactions in different areas of the political spectrum. The debate now is regarding the feasibility of such reopening, and there are already mixed opinions among constitutionalists, while Villarruel’s orbit anticipates that they will try to have the cases treated under the Rome Statutewhich is protected by the International Criminal Court.

The controversies regarding crimes against civilians in the seventies, which seemed to have been settled but which the vice president is trying to dust off, were even another milestone in the tug of war between Villarruel and Javier Mileisince he disowned the initiative and reiterated that the issue is not part of his agenda. Same response he gave about the visit of deputies from Freedom Moves Forward (LLA) to those convicted of crimes against humanity in the Ezeiza prison, with a potential project that the libertarian troops would have carried under their arm to grant benefits to the repressors of the last dictatorship.

However, doubts remained after the presentation of Villarruel on how statute-barred cases committed by civilians would be reopened, since the courts had already indicated that they were not crimes against humanity. Even in July 2012, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation had already rejected by “inadmissible” an extraordinary appeal against a ruling that dismissed seven defendants due to prescription. And in 2023 the Federal Judge Maria Servini rejected a request made by associations defending repressors who sought to reopen a case for the events that occurred on July 2, 1976 at the Federal Security Superintendency.

Likewise, “the Senate in particular has no interference with any judicial body, that is, those who reopen or not cases are the judicial bodies,” he mentioned. Scope a judicial specialist who works for Comodoro Py, who added that the Upper House “does not have any type of mechanism or agency that promotes a complaint, that is, it has to be done by the National State as such.” “The National State has few avenues to initiate a complaint, as a decentralized body. And then it is the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Public Prosecutor’s Office that can reopen or request the reopening of trials,” Indian.

The Rome Statute

“What we want is to put the issue on the agenda for debate, that the Rome Statute be applied for crimes committed against victims of terrorism,” the Senate presidency told this newspaper, and conceded that the Legislative Branch does not have the power to reopen cases, which is clearly the responsibility of the Judiciary. “Causes should not expire”they added.

The Rome Statute was signed in 1998, when “160 countries decided to establish a International Criminal Court permanent to judge individuals responsible for the most serious crimes affecting the entire world, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” according to the official website of the United Nations. And it explains that it differs from the International Court of Justice, since the latter “was designed primarily to deal with disputes between States” and does not have jurisdiction “over matters involving individual responsibility for a crime.”

In Argentina, The Rome Statute was approved by Law No. 25,390 and ratified on January 16, 2001.. Imprescriptible crimes are grouped into three categories: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Villarruel will have to present himself through the Civil Association Center for Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims (Celtyv)demonstrate that the attacks by Montoneros and the ERP are crimes against humanity. “Crimes against humanity cover a list of acts that are specifically prohibited when they form part of a systematic or widespread attack directed against any civilian population. These acts include murder, extermination, rape, sexual slavery, forced disappearance of persons and the crime of apartheid,” the United Nations defines.

Two views

However, constitutional lawyers consulted by Scope They had a mixed look. For Andres Gil Dominguez Reopening “is not feasible under any circumstances, Because they are all crimes that have been prescribed and at the time they were committed they were not crimes against humanity, so they are prescribed.”. While according to his peer Felix Lonigro “The crimes committed by terrorist organizations in the 1970s are crimes against humanity in some way; which means, undoubtedly, would fall within the scope of what is called imprescriptibility.” The latter added that the process to reopen it “would simply be the presentation of a document making the relevant request.”

Gil Domínguez is categorical regarding the impossibility: “The vice president has no power to reopen any judicial case. But, fundamentally, This has already been dealt with by the Supreme Court of Justice in a case called ‘Lariz Iriondo’where the extradition of a person was rejected member of ETA (the Basque nationalist terrorist organization) because it was considered that the crimes he had committed, for which Spain was requesting extradition, were not crimes against humanity at that time and the crimes had expired by the statute of limitations.”

The case of Jesus Maria Lariz Iriondo The case was decided by the Supreme Court in 2005, and the extradition request had been requested by Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón. “The Court considers that international law does not have sufficient progressive development to allow it to conclude that each and every one of the acts that, based on international treaties, come to be qualified as ‘acts of terrorism’ can be considered, for that circumstance alone, crimes against humanity,” the Court’s ruling states. Lariz Iriondo was accused of attacks against police officers in 1985.

“From a legal point of view, there is no possibility because these are crimes that have expired,” added Gil Domínguez.who added that the Rome Statute “is not retroactive.”

Lonigro, on the other hand, told this newspaper: “The Rome Statute is precisely what establishes the existence of crimes of international significance. What are they? Genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. So that is why the application of this statute is being proposed to consider that these crimes are crimes against humanity.”

Cases

In his speech at the Senate, Villarruel mentioned a series of cases. As reported by this media, there are three main arguments for the reopening attempt.

“Larraburé”. It deals with the kidnapping and death in 1975 of a soldier at the hands of the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), now in the Supreme Court. The other two cases involve Montoneros. One is “Bomb in Federal Coordination”an attack on a Federal Police canteen that occurred in 1976, currently in the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires. The other is “Rucci”, on the assassination of the then Secretary General of the CGT, José Ignacio Rucci, which occurred in 1974, by Judge Ariel Lijo, current Government candidate for the Supreme Court.