Days after pension judges will deny elevating the Supreme Court the question of whether or not a privilege pension should be paid again to former president Cristina Kirchner, the prosecutor Juan Carlos Paulucci presented a complaint appeal against that decision.
The objective is for the supreme court to consider the file and, ultimately, that “the inadmissibility of the precautionary measure” be declared that ordered the Anses to provisionally replace the payment of the privilege pension that the former official was receiving until November 2024 (and along with another benefit that was also several million times the amount), convicted of corruption in the Roads case and currently in house arrest.
The presentation was made by Paulucci in his capacity as deputy attorney general of the Attorney General’s Office No. 1 before the Federal Chamber of Social Security, representing the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
On Wednesday, April 29, by two votes to one, Chamber III of the Federal Chamber of Social Security rejected an extraordinary appeal against a ruling handed down last February. Consequently, Anses was obliged to pay the benefit claimed by CFK. In November 2024, the last month in which it was paid, the income in question was, after discounts, of almost $12.5 million. Both the Anses and the prosecutor Paulucci had requested the admission of an extraordinary appeal to take the matter to Court.
The decision made by judges Sebastián Russo and Juan Fantini of the aforementioned Chamber III, last February, involved giving rise to a precautionary measure requested by the former official, for to collect again the pension she received as the widow of former president Néstor Kirchner. He requested it as a provisional measure, pending the resolution of the trial in which he claims permanent restitution of both that pension and also from the lifetime allowance she received for being former president.
The two benefits were terminated by a resolution of the Anses in November 2024. It was after the sentence handed down by the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber, which considered Cristina Kirchner “author criminally responsible for the crime of fraudulent administration to the detriment of the public administration.” The conviction was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
In his presentation filed now, prosecutor Paulucci maintains that, in a previous opinion in the context of the case, he had already expressed that CFK’s situation in the public works trial is determining factor for a decision on the provisional collection of a benefit, given that the sentence implies, while it lasts, “the suspension of the enjoyment of all retirement, pension or retirement, civil or military.” This, beyond what is decided regarding the underlying issue of the validity or not of resolution 1092/2024 of the Anses, which canceled both privilege assignments.
Following that resolution, signed by the then executive director Mariano de los Heros, CFK began a lawsuit to recover the two benefits, originated in law 24,018. Although the regulations do not define them as “of privilege”, They are known this way because, to access their collection, neither a certain amount of contributions nor a specific age is required. Once that trial began, he also requested an injunction to provisionally collect, while the process continues, one of the two payments.
That request was rejected in November 2025 by the judge Karina Alonso Candis, of the Federal Social Security Court No. 1. But, after the plaintiff’s appeal, judges Russo and Fantini They admitted it, alleging food issues.
Following that decision, the Ministry of Human Capital, through Anses, presented an extraordinary appeal to ensure that the case reached the Supreme Court of Justice. That was denied last week by decision of judges Russo and Fantini, while the third member of the Chamber, Judge Nora Dorado, voted in favor of granting the State’s request.
Presentation of the complaint before the Court does not, in general, have a suspensive effect of the questioned order. That is, the payment to the former president should be fulfilled. The Nation’s Civil and Commercial Procedural Code provides that, “as long as the Court does not accept the complaint, the course of the process will not be suspended,” although there could be “very special cases” in which a suspensive effect is granted, according to a report from the Court’s Jurisprudence Secretariat, published in December 2024.
The total amount of the two allowances collected until November 2024 included about $6 million plus per southern zone, since the declared address was in Santa Cruz, despite the fact that the former official did not reside there. For the latter, there is a criminal complaint. It is taken for granted that, with CFK serving house arrest in the City of Buenos Aires, the additional fee for the southern zone will not be replaced. Without considering that extra, the amount charged for the benefit that the judges ordered to be replaced was, 17 months ago, $9,658,606.27. Sources close to the case estimated at a similar figure what should be paid for the precautionary measure. However, benefits for former presidents have updates according to non-public mechanisms.
In the ruling of the Pension Chamber that admitted CFK’s request in February of this year, it was held that “it is appropriate to grant prevalence of dietary character of the right whose protection is already pursued by the situation of vulnerability in which the plaintiff is placed as a consequence of the decision adopted by the organization” (in reference to the resolution of the Anses that ordered the withdrawal).
In a first stage, the former president had begun to perceive two privilege benefits at once after finishing his presidential term. Even in times of his own management, She had been granted retirement as a former president, at the same time that she was already receiving her widow’s allowance.
During the government of Mauricio Macri one of the benefits was stopped, in a decision justified by the incompatibilities established in the aforementioned law 24,018.
However, in March 2021 and in the midst of a pending trial on the issue, the then executive director of Anses and a camp activist, Fernanda Raverta, reinstated the payment of the suspended benefit.
Article 5 of Law 24,018 indicates that The collection of the former president’s allowance “is incompatible with the enjoyment of any national, provincial or municipal retirement, pension, retirement or ex gratia benefit.” Although there is no explicit mention of a lifetime allowance provided for by the same law, the same law defines the allowance for being the widow of a former president as a “pension.”
Beyond this discussion about double collection, the resolution of withdrawal of November 2024 argues that the collection of any benefit does not correspond, because that is incompatible with having committed a crime. “in the exercise of the same public function” for which the benefit originates.
The issue of collecting the double benefit has its own judicial case still open, after the then national deputy Graciela Ocaña, presented years ago a appeal to the Supreme Court (after having exhausted other resources), to ensure that the issue was not shelved, following the decision of the previous government (in which CFK was vice president) to administratively grant her the two benefits simultaneously.
