The current national administration has decided to assign new responsibilities to the Armed Forces in internal security tasks, which has revived concern in academic, political and human rights sectors. The immediate reference is the Roca operation on the northern border, an issue that forces rigorous legitimacy and social and political implications of this practice.
Since the return of democracy in 1983, Argentina has consolidated a rigorous separation between National Defense and Internal Security, embodied in laws 23,554 (1988) and 24,059 (1992). These norms were designed to promote the professionalization of police and military forces, clearly delimiting their respective areas of action and preventing the armed forces from assuming functions of security forces. This legal architecture emerged in direct response to the serious human rights violations committed during the last military dictatorship and constitutes a fundamental pillar of democratic institutionality.
However, different specialists warn that the current military intervention not only denotes operational improvisation, but also a progressive institutional weakening. In this sense, it is pertinent to point out that resorting to the Armed Forces to perform police roles represents a setback that demonstrates the inability of the State to strengthen their security forces and their inclination to opt for exceptional solutions to structural problems.
From the legal point of view, fragility is evident. Although the Ministry of Defense argues that the arrests in flagrance made by military are backed by articles 216 and 217 of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code, experts warn that transforming this exception into a usual practice erodes the separation between defense and security, compromising the delicate institutional balance that includes intelligence. In that sense, it should be added that flagrance, as a Criminal Law Institute, refers to spontaneous and exceptional situations, not to systematized behavior That, in any case, it should be provided for in the disadvantage rules that order military deployment – whose reach is still unknown. To this are added serious incidents, such as the case of abuse in the Navy (Voluntary Brisa Báez), which illustrate the risks of overloading the armed forces with functions for which they do not have the doctrine of adequate employment or the required training.
It is also important to highlight that this extended use ignores the precise limit established in article 397 of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code, which authorizes arrests by military only in effective combat areas, a clearly different scenario from border patrol tasks in peacetime. This substantial difference underlines the distance between what the law provides and the practices adopted by the Ministry of Defense.
Internationally, organizations such as IACHR and various human rights entities have warned about the danger of retreating in democratic standards. It can be affirmed that every step towards the militarization of internal security represents a setback in the consolidation of a row and transparent rule of law.
The future panorama raises several scenarios: Judicialization, which could paralyze current operations; the legal reform, which would establish a new regulatory framework, although with the risk of institutionalizing dangerous practices; And, finally, the option of strengthening security forces, considered the most prudent way to preserve our democracy.
The challenge remains to guarantee citizen security without undermining democratic bases. For this, it is essential to strengthen police institutions, invest in professionalization and resist temptation to resort to exceptional measures. Nora Cortiñas warned him precisely: “We cannot allow the easy solutions of today to become the nightmares of tomorrow.”
As for the arguments of the Ministry of Defense, there is a narrative that seeks to protect itself in lax interpretations of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code and the Internal Security Law. However, this position is misleading, since the regulations explicitly restrict military participation to exceptional situations under political conduction and legislative supervision. The invocation of an alleged “Emergency at the border” Without formal statement or parliamentary control violates the principles of legality and transparency. This speech, without a doubt, denatures exceptionality until it becomes a rule, putting at risk the foundations of the rule of law.
Finally, it is imperative that society knows the commitment rules designed for this military internal security operation – with its limits and scope; Otherwise, it could be interpreted that this initiative responds more to temporary political needs than to a serious institutional diagnosis.
Source: Ambito
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