The Government is speeding up the procedures to change to two of the judges of the Buenos Aires Federal Chamber, strategic court that must decide corruption cases, including the file against the chief of staff, Manuel Adorni, for their assets; the case of the National Disability Agency (Andis), in which it is mentioned Karina Milei, and the $LIBRA case, against Javier Milei.
The new decree 467/2026, signed last Tuesday by President Milei and the Minister of Justice, Juan Bautista Mahiques, allows the names of the candidates to the court to be published in the Official Gazette for three days and sent to the Senate. Previously, a process of impeachment by citizens and civil society was foreseen, which took 15 days, and then repeated in the Senate. Now it is done only once.
The change in deadlines, official sources explained, is related to rush these appointments and not move forward in completing the Supreme Court of Justice, where two vacancies remain. Fueled this speculation about the attempt to fill empty seats on the Court, the visit of Judge Ricardo Lorenzetti to Milei, to whom he proposed appointing chambermaid Mariano Borinsky and judge Karina Perilli there.
Lorenzetti did not carry Judge Ariel Lijo’s folder this time as a candidate, as he did last year, which caused some discomfort in the magistrate, said two court sources. Lijo does not abandon the idea of crowning his career in the Court or in the Attorney General’s Office. “You have a second chance,” government officials said.
But the immediate interest of the Executive Branch is in the Federal Chamber. For this reason, the Government is in a position to send next week two names from the shortlist of judges approved by the Judicial Council to fill vacancies in the chambermaids Leopoldo Bruglia and Pablo Bertuzzi.
Both were transferred ten years ago by the then president Mauricio Macri from other courts to the strategic Federal Chamber. The Court annulled these transfers and ordered the charges to be filed. The two shortlists that were approved to fill these positions include in the first list: Fernando Luis Rodolfo Poviña, Agustina Inés Rodríguez and Pablo Yadarola; and in the second, Julio César Di Giorgio, Cecilia Patricia Incardona and his own Bertuzziwho ran again for his position.
The favorites for the Executive Branch to propose to the Senate are Pablo Yadarola – close to Minister Mahiques – for a position and Bertuzzi himself or the prosecutor Incardona for the other member. This decision corresponds to the Minister of Justice and the President.
Bertuzzi is a name from the Comodoro Py courts, where he was secretary since the building converted to judicial headquarters is standing, and Incardona has the support of Kirchnerism, who voted for her in the Judicial Council, and the additional support of Judge Lijo, who praised her background.
The design of a new Federal Chamber is completed in the Government’s plans with the opening of a third vacancy, since Judge Martín Irurzun turns 75 on July 18, in one month, and his list was not submitted by the Executive Branch to the Senate for a revalidation of their agreement.
The new decree, which shortens the time, gives Irurzun the chance to still send its document to the Senate, but just in case The chambermaid has already filed an appeal in court against the constitutional limitation that forces him to retire at 75 years of age. and give battle. The background doesn’t help him, but the ending is open.
Sensitive files
There are already causes in the Federal Chamber that concern the Government and that a change would allow it to have more control: the ndis case, in which Irurzun and the chambermaids Roberto Boico and Eduardo Farah take part. And he’s in court the cause $LIBRA, where Bruglia, Bertuzzi – the two chambermaids to be renewed – and Mariano Llorens intervene.
Boico was appointed at the request of Kirchnerism and Llorens has good dialogue with the Government. Any change in the names will modify the balance on the court, which will be formed according to the design of the libertarian administration.
The Government’s interest in the integration of the Federal Chamber is also understood because it will land there sooner rather than later. the case of alleged illicit enrichment of Adorni, immovable for Milei until Justice says that he committed crimes. It is the court that should review his eventual prosecution. The court that intervenes in the case has not yet been drawn.
Although in the Casa Rosada they harbor the idea that in the Adorni case a resolution will not be reached summons to give an investigative statement, In the courts they believe the opposite.
Judge Lijo returned from Paris over the weekend, where he traveled with an official delegation accompanying Minister Mahiques, along with his colleague Sebastian Casanello. They went with Tomás Rodríguez Pontehead of the Court’s office dedicated to expert opinions on complex cases.
Members of the delegation say that there was not even a coffee or glass of wine, alone, on the banks of the Seine, between Lijo and Mahiques to talk about the Adorni case. Both have known each other for 20 years: the minister was a secretary at the Lijo court, but the travelers consulted insist that the trip was protocol.
There were meetings with incoming and outgoing FATF authorities and the anti-money laundering body praised the presence of judicial officials. Mahiques spoke before the plenary session and met with the anti-terrorism attorney, the School of Judiciary and the Minister of Gender and Discrimination. But no informal chats regarding Adorni, said one of the travelers.
Apart from the Federal Chamber, the Government is also interested in speed up the filling of vacancies for half of the federal oral courts of Comodoro Py, the federal courts of Santa Fe, Corrientes and La Plata.
One of the courts in a position to be covered right now is No. 10 of the economic criminal jurisdiction, where the case in which the the true owners of Pilar’s farm, supposedly in the hands of front men of the AFA treasurer Pablo Toviggino.
The judge who finally handles that case will take charge of all those involving the AFA, including the one in which The organization was reported for fraudulent administration. The candidates for that court proposed by the Judicial Council to the Executive Branch are Ignacio Labadens, María Juliana Márquez, secretary of a federal prosecutor’s office, and Matías Alejandro Latino.
But to avoid suspicions and so that no one says that Mahiques seeks to favor the AFA or that it is placing a judge on hand to solve the problems of Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, The minister resolved that he will not send any names to the Senate for now and will leave the surrogate Veronica Straccia, who took charge of the file, official sources told LA NACION.
The appointments of new judges proposed by the Government are advancing in the Senate and on June 30, for example, the public hearing that Tomás Rodríguez Ponte, former secretary of Lijo, head of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance in Complex Crimes and Organized Crime (Dajudeco).
His petition was supported by Lijo and he was sent to occupy a federal court in Lomas de Zamora, strategic for national security, smuggling and drug trafficking due to its jurisdiction over the Ezeiza airport.
In the Judicial Council, chaired by the head of the Court, Horacio Rosatti, In the plenary session on April 15, 17 shortlists were approved for as many courts, and in the plenary session on June 10, 15 shortlists were approved for as many vacancies. The judges are ecstatic because the appointments are moving forward. There are 32 vacancies filled in 2026.
In that organization they are interested in moving forward now with filling the vacancies, because, among other reasons, a good part of its members are renewed in November.
The establishment that came first is that of the academic advisors who appointed Diego Molea, historic rector of the National University of Lomas de Zamora, who was already a counselor. The second academic representative is disputed the Peronist Juan Manuel Olmos, one of the influential in Buenos Aires justice, and the radical Emiliano Yacobitti, vice-rector of the University of Buenos Aires and another pole of judicial management.
Among the judges for the Bordó list, Diego Barroetaveña He seeks his re-election and asked the contentious-administrative Justice for a ruling that leaves his authorization beyond doubt; and, among the lawyers, the other local and federal justice operator, Daniel Angelici, seeks to appoint two advisors.
Renewal
The forces in the Judicial Council will change at the end of the year, and The Government will consolidate its presence with its own advisors and allies, with whom he will negotiate, and will have more strength for the removal and appointment of judges.
In addition, the Milei government seeks to complete Comodoro Py the implementation of the adversarial system which was already launched in most provinces by former Minister of Justice Mariano Cúneo Libarona.
For this reason, Mahiques will call this Tuesday for a reform commission of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code, to advance the changes requested by federal judges and prosecutors and that stopped the arrival of the adversarial system at the heart of federal justice.
Among the changes, prosecutors want them to be able to be made agreements with defendants who are public officials persecuted for acts of corruption, what is now prohibited. They want to facilitate investigations of complex crimes, more typical of Comodoro Py than federal courts in the interior, and they intend to make it clear that prosecutors can participate in the hearings.
The judges, on the other hand, They do not want to lose control of the causes and in some jurisdictions it goes to the extreme that, even though the hearings are all public, the magistrate makes the prosecutors advance in writing what they are going to say. An issue that is not settled and that will generate debate.
The root of the problem is that The majority of federal judges in Comodoro Py do not want to cede control of the files to the prosecutors and be the ones who maintain power. They want any negotiation, even regarding the disposition of criminal action, to go through them.
Thus, in three months, since the arrival of Mahiques as Minister of Justice, changes in the design of the Judiciary were precipitated, an area in which the La Libertad Avanza government until now had not been able to gain a foothold.
