BETWEEN POLITICS AND LAW: JUDICIAL IMPEACHMENT IN ARGENTINA (1946-2003)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17808/des.2284Keywords:
Judicial impeachment, Judicial manipulation, Judicial independenceAbstract
Summary: This article seeks to investigate, based on the judicial manipulation concept (Castagnola, 2016), the justifications presented by members of Congress for ruling on the admissibility of accusations against justices of the Argentine Supreme Court in 1946, 2002, and 2003. In doing so, it tests the hypothesis that political reasons—particularly those associated with the justices’ decisional orientation—were the primary justifications adopted by legislators to legitimize the removal of judges. Through categorical content analysis, 108 parliamentary votes were classified into two broad categories: political reasons (grounds related to decisional orientation, consequences, and popular prestige) and legal reasons (grounds related to procedure, the scope of impeachment, and legal typification). Political reasons, especially those based on the Court’s rulings cited—or not cited—in the accusation, were the main source of legitimation for the impeachment attempts. The findings test the limits of existing theories of judicial manipulation and suggest, as conclusion, that impeachment is used as a mechanism for the political evaluation of the Court, constituting an institution potentially harmful to judicial independence.
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