On 12 August the lower chamber of congress approved a bill declaring null and void the two laws enacted during the Alfonsín presidency (1983-89) that barred further prosecutions of members of the military régime for crimes committed while they were in power in 1976-83. The vote was taken against the backdrop of demonstrations calling for an `end to impunity', and it was welcomed by the government, in the person of prime minister Alberto Fernández, as having `reinstated the rule of law in Argentina'.
In the immediate celebratory mood few took note of a detail that jurists began to point out even before the bill was passed on to the senate for final approval: that the resulting law will have no legal effect. Congress may repeal a law (thus rendering it inapplicable from that moment onwards), but cannot declare it null and void from its inception - that can only be done by the courts; ultimately by the supreme court.
Indeed, apart from playing to the gallery, the bill approved by the chamber of deputies can best be understood as yet another element of the pressure President Néstor Kirchner has been bringing to bear on the supreme court to come up with a nullity ruling. The court has been sitting on the case for two years and recently said it would rule in its own good time - a stance which must be seen in the light of the government's determination to have all Menem appointees to the court impeached. [The chamber of deputies has just voted to proceed with the impeachment of a second Menem-appointed justice, Eduardo Moliné O'Connor; his case has gone up to the senate, which must sit in judgment. Unlike Julio Nazareno, the first justice so challenged, Moliné has said he will not resign; indeed, that if he is removed from office he will take his case up with an international court.]
The senate is due to vote this week, probably on 20 August, on the `annulment' bill. Disagreement is greater among the senators than in the lower chamber over the sense of passing a law which will have no legal effect. Vice-President Daniel Scioli has gone on the record with this view that the annulment would have `no juridical validity.' He feels strongly about this: `In a serious country,' he said last week, `laws are not annulled.'
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