Argentina
Patricia Bullrich and Jorge Macri questioned the ruling that set aside an article of the Juvenile Criminal Regime in a specific case
Buenos Aires City Judge Laura De Marinis declared Article 1 of Law 27,801 unconstitutional in a robbery-attempt case and dismissed proceedings against a 14-year-old. The decision drew criticism from the ruling coalition and an announcement that a political impeachment request would be filed.
La Libertad Avanza Senator Patricia Bullrich criticized the ruling by Buenos Aires City Judge Laura De Marinis, who declared Article 1 of the new Juvenile Criminal Regime unconstitutional in a specific case and dismissed proceedings against a 14-year-old accused of attempted robbery, according to La Nacion.
According to that outlet, Bullrich said on X that there are judges “more concerned with protecting criminals than with delivering justice for victims” and stated that “these garantist judges only build impunity.”
The ruling was signed by De Marinis, head of the Juvenile Criminal, Misdemeanor and Offenses Court No. 3 of the City of Buenos Aires, and concerned a case opened on September 10, when a group of teenagers tried to steal a 47-year-old man’s cellphone. The Public Prosecutor’s Office classified the incident as attempted robbery, La Nacion reported.
The challenged law establishes a criminal regime for people between 14 and 18 accused of offenses set out in the Penal Code or in special criminal laws. In her ruling, the magistrate said that incorporation into the criminal system must be the last resort and noted: “As adults, we cannot punish children and adolescents for what we did not do, for having left them abandoned in their early childhood.”
According to Infobae, De Marinis also argued that lowering the age of criminal responsibility is regressive and violates international treaties with constitutional rank, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. That outlet added that the judge cited recommendations from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which urged Argentina to keep the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 16.
The decision also prompted a response from Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri, who announced that he will seek the judge’s political impeachment and that the City will appeal the ruling. According to La Nacion, he said that judges “have to apply the laws, not make new ones.”
According to Infobae, the scope of the ruling is limited to the case at hand and does not suspend the law in general.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do its own reporting on this event.
