Versión Español
EspañolOn Tuesday, President Cristina Kirchner announced Congress will consider changes to Argentina’s Criminal Procedural Code.
Proposed changes to the code include the ability to deport foreigners who are caught committing a crime, changes to custodial policy, and replacing the country’s inquisitorial legal system with an adversarial system.
“We are giving the Argentinean people an agile, fast, and modern procedural instrument that has been demanded by federal judges, academia, and the reality that our system today is slow, burdensome, and makes our society feel unprotected,” said Kirchner.
The president stated that foreigners with “any type of irregularity during their time in the country” and that “are caught in the act of committing a crime, will be expelled from the country and will not be allowed to return.”
Currently, foreigners can be deported after serving half their jail sentence. However, Security Secretary Sergio Berni says “only 3 percent go to trial, much less receive a sentence.”
The proposal has been met with mixed response from Argentina’s opposition parties. Renewal Front Deputy Darío Giustozzi spoke out against the reform package, claiming the bill effectively “increases the discretionary power of the district attorneys that are affiliated with the Attorney General’s office.” He further argued that the “party in power offers no proposal that will truly serve justice.”
Radical Civic Union Deputy Ricardo Gil Lavedra also criticized the proposal, saying the initiative “arrived quite late on the scene because there are already similar bills in Congress that are ready to be voted on.”
Source: La Nación.
