Justice maintains a house arrest of Cristina Kirchner

Argentina’s court ruled on Friday that former President Cristina Kirchner should remain in her current house arrest.

It will continue to use an electronic anklet and will need special authorizations to receive visits outside the list of family members and essential people presented at the beginning of their house arrest last month.

The Federal Chamber of Cassation, considered a second judicial instance, responded to the arguments of prosecutor Mario Villar. Last week, Villar had expressed that the house arrest should go on, but proposed a different address from Rua San José 1111, in the Constación neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where the former president has been detained in her apartment since June 17.

Judges of the Court, Gustavo Hornos, Mariano Borinsky and Diego Barroetaveña, agreed that the place of serving the sentence should not change, despite the frequent demonstrations of peronistic militants who occupy close streets to show support to Cristina, causing complaints from other residents of the neighborhood.

The magistrates considered the situations that affected the neighborhood at times after June 10, when the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction. “

Prosecutor Villar had submitted arguments against those of his first instance colleagues, Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola. A few days after the commencement of the sentence, the two had asked the former president to be transferred to a prison of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

At the same time, this Friday, the Chamber of Cassation has commented on two requests from Cristina’s defense: the annulment of the current visiting regime-which requires her to request special judicial authorization each time she wants to receive someone who is not from her nearest circle-and the removal of the electronic anklet, considering that there is no risk of escape.

On both issues, the Court divided its vote: Hornos and Barroetaveña, by majority, imposed that the use of the anklet and the visiting regime would be maintained. Already Borinsky, in minority, granted the opposite, arguing that this modality of control is “a disproportionate restriction on the personal, social and political rights of the condemned person.”

Argentina’s Supreme Court rejected, on June 10, a appeal filed by the former president, and thus ratified his six-year conviction for corruption in the granting of road works in the province of Santa Cruz during his government and that of his predecessor in the presidency and deceased husband, Néstor Kirchner.