The ball is in the judiciary’s court. With the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the seizure amount in the Vialidad case, there are no more twists: the state must recover what was stolen from it. The highest court dismissed the delaying tactics of the defenses of Cristina Kirchner, Lázaro Báez, and other former officials convicted for diverting public works funds. Now, what follows is to execute the seizure without further legal tricks.
The figure, updated to nearly 685 billion pesos, is no minor detail. This is not a symbolic penalty: it is the legal instrument to ensure corruption does not pay. That the convicted return every last peso they stole. The debate over the amount was settled when the Court rejected the defenses’ appeals. Now, the ball is in the court of the criminal execution judges.
But beware, the delay is not innocent. Every motion, every appeal, every complaint from the convicts’ lawyers had a single goal: to buy time. Time that inflation uses to erode the value of what must be returned. That is why prosecutor Diego Luciani is already preparing a new request to update the amount. It is not to aggravate the sentence, but to ensure the compensation does not become a joke. If the damage was indexed to nearly 685 billion a year ago, today it is worth less. The judiciary cannot allow the passage of time to benefit the corrupt.
The Vialidad case uncovered one of the biggest corruption scandals in Argentine history: the steering of public works in Santa Cruz to line the pockets of the powerful’s friends. Cristina Kirchner, Báez, and other former officials were convicted of fraudulent administration. The sentence established the patrimonial damage and ordered the seizure of assets. But the execution got bogged down in a tangle of appeals that the Court has just untangled.
Now, the judiciary has an obligation to act swiftly. Real estate, vehicles, boats, cash, corporate holdings: all of that is part of the loot to be recovered. The task is complex, but complexity cannot be another excuse for further delay. Society is already fed up with seeing processes drag on forever while the convicts enjoy their assets.
Corruption does not end with the conviction. It ends when the state recovers what was stolen. If after a final sentence the proceeds of crime remain in limbo, the message is devastating: stealing from the state can pay off, after all, after a few years, time and inflation do the rest. The Court took the first step. Now, the judiciary must close the circle. Without delays, without excuses.
Para mí se acabaron las excusas che que vayan presos los kukas chorros de una vez 685 mil millones robados al pueblo argentino y mientras tanto los zurditos llorando esto huele a justicia tardía pero llega a ejecutar el decomiso ya y que pudran en cana los corruptos
Para mí este fallo es puro teatro burgués. La guita la afanaron entre amigos del poder y ahora hacen circo con ‘decomisos’ para bancar al mismo sistema. Cristina es una presa política, no una chorra. Esto huele a venganza, no a justicia. ¡Libertad a la compañera y abajo la mafia judicial!