High Court refuses to take Chabán case

By Guillermo Háskel Herald staff While the Supreme Court yesterday refused to handle the case of the main suspect in a disco inferno which killed nearly 200 people last year, judges and observers said that the government of President Néstor Kirchner is seeking to reap political gain from the tragedy.
"We see a great political speculation behind all this," Miguel Angel Caminos, the head of the Association of National Magistrates, told the Herald.
The Supreme Court rejected two requests to annul the bail granted to nightclub manager Omar Chabán, alleging that the per saltum method proposed by the prosecutor and the relatives of the victims was "not the due procedural way." The case will hence be handled by the Cassation Court.
The ruling was unanimously signed by seven of the Court’s nine members. Justice Antonio Boggiano, who in the past supported the per saltum, chose not to sign. Justice Eugenio Zaffaroni was challenged by the relatives of the victims as he earlier yesterday opposed the per saltum but the Court rejected the challenge against him. Justice Carlos Fayt declined to sign out of "decorum," saying: "Per saltum is a bypass and there is always the risk that during surgery the heart stops."
Meanwhile, the Magistracy Council started considering whether Appeals Court Judges María Laura Garrigós de Rébori and Gustavo Bruzzone should be impeached after last week granting bail to Chabán, the manager of the República Cromañón disco which on December 30 caught fire killing 193 people.
The night club in the Once neighbourhood was hopelessly overcrowded. Its emergency doors were locked.
Fearing public wrath, Chabán chose not to pay the 500,000-peso bail and remain in prison for the time being instead. He is the only person detained in the case.
Kirchner said that granting bail to Chabán was "a slap in the face of Argentine society" and at his request the ruling was appealed by a prosecutor.
Separately, relatives of the victims requested the Supreme Court to take over the case via a per saltum, a procedure which judges agree is not regulated by law.
The appeals judges granted Chabán bail only days after another court allowed former top Menem official María Julia Alsogaray to walk free on parole, pending trials on a barrage of corruption charges.
Kirchner and Cabinet officials said that the rulings on the Alsogaray and Chabán cases were suspicious. They added that it was remarkable that Alsogaray was freed days after she started denouncing that officials in the 1989-1999 Carlos Menem administration — several of whom now serve under Kirchner — cashed in hefty bonuses from secret funds.
Political opportunism seen behind moves
Leading judges and experts said that with an eye to October’s mid-term election — which Kirchner describes as a plebiscite on his performance — the government is seeking to benefit politically from the disaster.
Judge Caminos said that the comments from Kirchner and his ministers "are an obvious interference within the judiciary power" and entailed "political speculation."
Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernández rejected the charge.
Government officials cried foul at Chabán’s obtaining bail due to the "social repercussion" sparked by the decision. Relatives of the victims staged rallies and marches and scuffled with police.
The Criminal Appeals Court said in a statement that a demonstrator on Friday doused with gasoline the court’s door and even police uniforms and with a lighter in his hand threatened to "kill all judges."
"Social repercussion" was in the past included in Argentine legislation as a factor to be reckoned with in making court decisions but Caminos said that it is no longer in force.
The Association that Caminos chairs issued a statement criticizing the government’s interference but made clear that it did not give an opinion on the content of Rébori’s and Bruzzone’s decision. Both judges quit the case on Monday alleging that their "spiritual balance" was affected.
The heads of six appeals courts also criticized the government’s interference.
Former justice minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra said: "Out of sheer political opportunism, the government is undermining the authority of courts.
"All this unveils the brutal lack of people’s confidence in the functioning of institutions and the government’s reaction tends to further undermine the authority of judges’ decisions," Gil Lavedra told the Herald.
The former minister said that at first sight the decision allowing Alsogaray to walk free was acceptable "although the fact that it was issued immediately after she started airing corruption charges publicly contributed to casting suspicion on it."
"The Chabán case is more complicated. The judges who granted him bail have an impeccable record but the interpretation of the procedural code they made is questionable.
"I wouldn’t have ruled in that way. However, theirs is one of the possible interpretations," Gil Lavedra said.
Government officials questioned judges Rébori and Bruzzone for allowing Chabán bail when his reaction after the tragedy was to flee. One of the factors to consider in granting bail is whether the beneficiary would not attempt to obstruct justice.
Political analyst Rosendo Fraga told the Herald that the rulings in the Alsogaray and Chabán cases follow the line of "the excessive zeal for civil liberties which Kirchner has been fostering and that excessive zeal is now backfiring."
But Sergio Berensztein, a political science professor with the Di Tella University, told the Herald that rather than an excessive zeal for civil liberties, Kirchner is "moving according to public wishes, which is an even more worrying demagoguery."
Kirchner came to office in May 2003 with the lowest electoral support for a president in Argentine history and amid the country’s worst economic crisis on record, which the population at large blames on the political class.
To build a power base, he has been trying to bypass his own Peronist party and has relied strongly on public opinion. A sweeping purge of virtually every state institution, including the Supreme Court, has won him high popularity.
The government was severely criticized even by Justice Zaffaroni, a civil liberties advocate whom Kirchner appointed despite irregular declarations of assets.
"In politics there are certain ethical principles and as a consequence it would be convenient to allow the judiciary to work calmly, without seeking to reap votes from such a catastrophe," he told radio Mitre.
"The best the political power can do is not to exacerbate public opinion," Zaffaroni said.
Meanwhile, Buenos Aires Mayor Aníbal Ibarra said that although he did not share the judges’ ruling, Rébori and Bruzzone "acted out of their own conviction and free from any consideration of political pressure."
Relatives of the victims blame Ibarra for what they describe as lax safety controls in discos and are demanding his resignation.