Law of Argentina - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Legal system of Argentina is a Civil law

Civil law (legal system)

Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

legal system. The two pillars of the Civil system are the Constitution of Argentina

Constitution of Argentina

The constitution of Argentina is one of the primary sources of existing law in Argentina. Its first version was written in 1853 by a Constitutional Assembly gathered in Santa Fe, and the doctrinal basis was taken in part from the United States Constitution...

(1853) and the Civil Code of Argentina

Civil Code of Argentina

The Civil Code of Argentina is the legal code which forms the foundation of the system of civil law in Argentina. It was written by Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield, as the culmination of a series of attempts to codify civil law in Argentina. The original code was approved on September 25, 1869, by the...

(1871).

The Argentine Constitution of 1853

Argentine Constitution of 1853

The Argentine Constitution of 1853 was the first constitution of Argentina, approved with the support of the governments of the provinces —though without that of the Buenos Aires Province, who remained separated of the Argentine Confederation until 1859, after several modifications to the...

was an attempt to unite the unstable and young country of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata under a single law, creating as well the different organisms needed to run a country. The constitution was finally approved after failed signatory attempts in 1813 (see Assembly of 1813

Asamblea del Año XIII

The Assembly of Year XIII was a meeting called by the Second Triumvirate governing the young republic of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata on October 1812....

), 1819 and 1831 (Pacto Federal

Pacto Federal

The Federal Pact was a treaty first signed by the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos and Santa Fe on 4 January 1831, for which a Federal military alliance was created to confront the Unitarian Liga Unitaria...

).

The Civil Code

Civil code

A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure...

was written by Argentine jurist

Jurist

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield

Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield was an Argentine lawyer and politician who wrote the Argentine Civil Code of 1869, the vast majority of which remains in use to this day.-Life and times:...

, and started being effective on January 1, 1871. Beyond the influence of the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

legal tradition, the Argentine Civil Code was also inspired by the Draft of the Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian Civil Code, the Draft of the Spanish Civil Code of 1851, the Napoleonic code

Napoleonic code

The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...

and the Chilean Civil Code

Civil Code (Chile)

The Civil Code of the Republic of Chile is the work of Venezuelan jurist and legislator Andrés Bello...

among others.
The sources of this Civil Code also include various theoretical legal works, mainly of the great French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

jurists of the 19th century. It was the first Civil Law that consciously adopted as its cornerstone the distinction between i. rights from obligations and ii. real property rights, thus distancing itself from the French model.

Judicial system

Justice is administered by both federal and provincial courts. The former deal only with cases of a national character or those to which different provinces or inhabitants of different provinces are parties. The Supreme Court, which supervises and regulates all other federal courts, is composed of nine members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Other federal courts include nine appellate courts, with three judges for each; single judge district courts, at least one for each province; and one-judge territorial courts. The federal courts may not decide political questions.
Judges of the lower courts are appointed by the president.

Provincial courts include supreme courts, appellate courts, courts of first instance, and minor courts of justices of the peace (alcaldes) and of the market judges. Members of provincial courts are appointed by the provincial governors. Trial by jury was authorized by the 1853 constitution for criminal cases, but its establishment was left to the discretion of congress, resulting in sporadic use.

A 1991 law provides a fund for compensating prisoners who were illegally detained during the 1976–83 military dictatorship. In 1992, a system of oral public trials was instituted in order to speed up the judicial process while improving the protection of procedural rights of criminal defendants.

In practice, there is not a truly independent judiciary. The courts lack power to enforce orders against the executive and federal judges who actively pursue charges of police or military corruption. In 1989, President Menem, in a court-packing maneuver, expanded the number of Supreme Court justices from five to nine. In 2003, shortly aft er taking office, President Néstor Kirchner

Néstor Kirchner

Néstor Carlos Kirchner was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations ...

signaled his intention to remove some of Menem’s appointees and to strengthen the judiciary by undoing some of Menem’s moves that turned the Supreme Court into a political ally of the president
rather than an autonomous power of the state. Formal and informal constitutional accusation against Menem-appointed Supreme Court justices between 2003 and 2005 allowed Kirchner to appoint new justices who were considered friendly to his regime. Thus, the autonomy and independence of the Supreme Court continued to be weakened by the executive’s decision to influence the appointment and tenure of justices.

The constitution

Constitution of Argentina

prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence. The government respects these provisions. The constitution prohibits torture; however, police brutality remains a serious problem. The judicial system is subject to delays, resulting in lengthy pretrial detention.