The Justice declared the “absolute and irreparable nullity” of the resolution by which the increase and new rate tables of the City Subway Service were determined.
The ruling was handed down by the Tax Administrative Litigation judge of the City of Buenos Aires, Elena Liberatori, in which it is noted that “The tariff determination made by SBASE through Resolution 5/SBASE/2024 suffers from deficiencies that cannot be corrected.”
The amparo was presented by legislators Myriam Bregman, Alejandrina Barry, Patricio del Corro, and Claudio Dellecarbonara, with the sponsorship of Alberto Platkowski, Lilen Camila Reyes and Agustina Ferro against the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and Subterráneos de Buenos Aires Sociedad del State (SBASE) in order to declare the nullity of Resolution 5/SBASE/24.
The judge questioned the form of rate determination, lack of regulation of the procedure to be followed for increasing the service rate, reluctance in the delivery of public information, among other points.
“There is a delicate balance where moderation must prevail in the increase in the rate in favor of the economic equation of the users. The need to recompose the rate in a fair and reasonable manner is not discussed here, but rather the acts, procedures and information that led to conceiving this rate table as a series of rates that comply with the assumptions of justice and reasonableness required by the Law. ”, the judge concluded.
Impact on users: loss of passengers
“The impact of the rate increase on the use of the Subway service cannot be ignored. This is evident in the data from the City Statistics and Census Center, which shows a clear decrease in passengers from the months where there was an increase in the user rate,” said the magistrate.
“It goes without saying that these passengers do not stop traveling, but rather opt for other, more economical means of transportation to make their transfers, which in essence constitutes a forced migration as a result of the increase in the fare.”
The judge highlighted the “flaws” in the delivery of information that vitiated the public hearing and that the questions raised by the Citizens “were not considered or answered by the Enforcement Authority.”
A report that proposed the possibility of a minor increase and that indicated that the economic-financial equation of users should be considered when proposing rate updates was also not substantially taken into account.
The judge warned that passengers do not stop traveling, but rather opt for other, more economical means of transportation to make their transfers, “which in essence constitutes a forced migration as a result of the increase in the fare.”
“If the technical rate is calculated by the total cost of the service divided by the total number of passengers transported in the previous year, as the number of passengers decreases, the divisor will inexorably become smaller and consequently the technical rate – and by extension the user fee – will be increasingly higher.”
perfect storm
“We are facing a perfect storm where the Subway service cannot decrease in quality, which by increasing the value of the ticket expels users from the service, which has the consequence that the following year the updated costs are divided between fewer people and Thus history repeats itself over and over again.” The question is whether the amount of the fee should be rolled back. It is assumed that the Buenos Aires Government will appeal the resolution, so the ruling is not final.
The City will appeal the ruling
Subterráneos de Buenos Aires SE and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires announced that they will appeal the ruling of the first instance judge in Administrative and Tax Litigation No. 4 Elena Amanda Liberatori, by which she gave rise to an amparo action and declared the nullity of the resolution that allowed the subway rate to be updated.
Since it is a final ruling, filing an appeal suspends the effects of the resolution. In this way, the rate will remain the same.
“In that sense, since October 1, the trip on the Subway costs $757 and on the Premetro, $264.95 with registered SUBE, and $859.07 and $300.67 respectively if they do not have the nominalized card,” they said.
Source: Ambito
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