The "please, move" part may well be a consequence of the written system of justice that applies in Argentina, where except a handful of criminal cases (not even all of them) EVERY LEGAL PROCESS IS IN WRITTING. Hence, the lousy lawyers has large incentives to collect their fees up front, but not to follow through the whole process in a reasonable period of time, since the client barely has the will and the time to control the annoying judicial process.
A few days ago, a leftist oriented NGO - Fundación La Alameda- filed a case against a major celebrity of the judicial branch, Supreme Court Justice Raul Eugenio Zaffaroni, a leftist oriented judge, whom prior to being appointed SC Justice acted as a criminal judge, ruling outrageous judgments in favour always of criminals. For instance, in a shocking case, Judge Zaffaroni released the rapist of a young girl claiming that forcing her to perform oral sex to him could not be understood as rape, given that the girl did not suffer any penetration from the perpetrator.
The NGO filed a report against Zaffaroni, accusing him of being the owner of 16 apartments, 6 of them leased to high class prostitutes whom used them for their professional practice. Of course, the news broke a major fuzz, proper of this hypocrate society.
The funny part is that not long ago the queen - sorry, the president- Cristina Kirchner issued a presidential decree banning all sex advertisement published in the newspapers (usually known as to Class 59 ads), offering sexual services. Ha! Last week, Zaffaroni, one of her most distinguished acolytes was reported to be linked to a prostitution net, and suspected of being a pimp... aside from a Supreme Court Justice.
No one with a minimum common sense would believe that the judge was involved in the prostitution business, neither he collected any money from the prostitutes. In fact, Zaffaroni said that he appointed some administrators to manage his properties, and so he was negligent in controlling his representatives. But not even that should be reprehensible, since it's his problem with his properties and with his appointed managers.
What most certainly caught my attention, and not that of many more, from the published news in the media, is how come a public servant, a judge, whom spent most of his working life acting as a member of the judicial branch came to own 16 apartments, in one of the nicest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires???
Alledgely, the judge collects a pretty decent salary, but a regular salary at last.
Doing the maths, and being really conservative with the prices and figures, each of those apartments are worth value of not less than U$S 100,000 each. That makes a net wealth of U$S 1.6 Million (that's AR$ 6,4 Million). Let's make a rough estimate of the Judge's income for the last, say, 20 years, and fixed a constant value of U$S 7,5000 salary per month. That makes U$S 90,000 per year. In the last 20 years, the judge could have well made U$S 1,8 Million. Gross. Hence, out of his total income he saved 88% of his salaries, and lived with the remaining 12%. That's $216,000.
But let's be fair and expect some more extra income from conferences and book selling. Still, he managed to make so much money out of that, that he even managed to buy apartments in Rio de Janeiro and in Spain, and left some "small amount" in a swiss bank... 20 years ago. Wow! that's a financial wizard! I've attended the very same law school he did... and so far I managed to have a very small (also) savings acount in a US bank.... just in case, you know.
Zaffaroni is a well respected criminal law professor and publisher. Even people who are totally against his philosophical positions (for instance, his ideas of supporting criminals instead of victims, and blaming on "society" for their abandonment to poverty and social exclusion, later the cause of their criminal actions) admire his smartness and brightness. Not me. Of all the text books I had to read in law school, none of them made any sense to me, since at all times his positions forgets to consider THE most important element of all, when it comes to judge the criminal actions of a person: the free will of his acting.
Zaffaroni was appointed by late Nestor Kirchner in 2003, expecting him to become an ally at the time to hear and rule "Human Rights" cases that the former president planned to foster and encourage against the military whom were part of the last -and tragic- military regime started in 1976, which caused the dissapear of several many individuals. His leftist tendencies were well known and his simpathy for the leftist guerrillas also. Hence, he was the perfect "friend" to appoint at the major and most important institution of the Republic, the Supreme Court.
Nowadays, Zaffaroni cries out that he's being the target of a political harrasement due to his simpathy to the Kirchnerism regime. But what's really remarkable is that the reports against him were filed by an also leftist NGO. So, why would a leftist organization would go against him, also a leftist?
In a nutshell, Argentina is becoming closer and closer to any given fictional Banana Republic, far and away from all institutional and republican way of life.
Ok, go ahead, and please... Cry for me, Argentina. I'll do my best to wipe your tears..
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