The judicial reform in Santa Fe overcame the crack due to the urgency of the advance of drug trafficking

ROSARIO.- The urgency and the need to stop violence in Rosario that oozes from drug trafficking achieved something unusual in current politics: that the so-called crack was put aside, at least in the face of this problem. Santa Fe legislators from different parties came together to promote what they call the project to strengthen federal criminal justice of the province, which on Tuesday had half a sanction from the Chamber of Deputies.

This bill, which will now go to the Senate, provides for the creation of 50 judicial posts in the federal jurisdiction, mostly in Rosario: 36 in the Public Ministry and 14 in the federal courts, all based in the province of Santa Fe. According to the latest report from the budget office of the National Congress, the The fiscal impact of the legislative proposal will be 1,106 million pesos per year.

Once the Senate approves the law, in order to implement the new structures, the Bicameral Commission for the Implementation of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code must be formed, which has yet to name the senators that will integrate it. At this point the deputies have already been appointed.

The problem that arises is immediately, in the urgency that exists in the federal jurisdiction of Rosario, where the judicial structure has not changed for decades despite the growth of drug trafficking in this city. As reported THE NATION On February 21, the national government delayed the appointment of 20 percent of the federal judges in Santa Fe, while 25% of the federal prosecutor positions are vacant.

According to the official information published on the website of the Judicial Council, of the 28 positions of federal judges in the jurisdiction, there are currently two federal judges whose appointment depends on the President sending his candidate to the Senate, so that the The Upper House analyzes agreeing to it, and four other federal judges whose documents were sent to the Senate and were never dealt with. In addition, there are three other vacancies, whose contests are being processed in the Council of the Magistracy. In recent days, the Attorney General called a contest for the position of Chamber prosecutor that has been vacant for seven years.

Aníbal Pineda, chambermaid of the federal jurisdiction of Rosario, held a dialogue with THE NATION that the important thing about the half sanction of this law is that “the crack was overcome and that the political class understood that Rosario’s problem with drug trafficking must be addressed as a State policy.”

In relation to the deficit of federal justice in Rosario, the official explained that one of the advantages that this regulation grants if it is sanctioned is that “the Attorney General will be able to appoint temporarily and in a short period of time 18 federal prosecutors in this jurisdiction , where today there are only three”.

According to Pineda, each prosecutor currently has some 1,500 cases in his office, so if new Public Ministry officials are temporarily appointed, “this would improve the level of investigations.”

At that point, the representative of Together for Change Federico Angelini He considered that it is important that the measures that arise from this law, which has a medium sanction, “be implemented in the short term to counteract the advance of drug trafficking.”

“This project, which was never a priority for the government, will help the Federal Justice in the fight against drug trafficking and I celebrate it; That is why we are fighting to be at the venue today approving this project. But we need short-term measures, which have to be taken by the provincial and national governments,” said Angelini.

“Therein lies the problem, because if they wanted to solve this crisis in the short term, they would put aside the ideology and that logic that has been implemented in 16 of the last 20 years, and they would take immediate measures,” said the legislator.

The deputy of the Front of All Roberto Mirabella He also stated that there must be a political decision to carry out the changes. “Our federal structure in Santa Fe has been the same for many years; The last thing that this Congress created was the Venado Tuerto court in 2012 and the Rafaela court in 2006,” he recalled, and in that sense he stated that money laundering, for example, is a crime that did not exist 30 or 40 years ago.

“The drug crime that occurs in our province does not have much history. According to the Procunar, 20% of drug cases throughout the country are processed in Santa Fe. Urban violence has unusual levels in that district and the number of homicides in Rosario is four times the national average.

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