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| Salta´s Senate |
Finally, the long awaited moment arrived. After ten years of intense debate, workshops, mock jury trials, advice from national and international scholars and several conferences, our beautiful province of Salta, land of extraordinary wines, unforgettable landscapes and folklore the Senate of Salta passed the trial by jury law.
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| Cafayate, the land of the best white wines |
This is extraordinary news for the consolidation of the adversarial system with juries provided by the Constitution of Argentina.
The Salta law establishes the classic jury model that will start judging only murders in the first degree.
The jury trial will be mandatory, made up of 12 citizens with gender parity, who will receive instructions on the law from the presiding judge. There is a voir dire hearing with four peremptories per side. The general verdict of the jury must be unanimous and final. If the jury hangs, only one retrial will be admitted.
The unanimity rule has an exception: a valid verdict of ten votes will be accepted if, after a long period of deliberations, unanimity is not reached.
The jury bill of Salta will have a strong influence in northern Argentina. Chaco, Catamarca and now Salta are the provinces of the NOA with jury trials.
As we said a few days ago, the trial by jury fever that is sweeping through Argentina since 2014 does not stop. The federal jury bill is expecting to receive half enactment in the next weeks by the House of Representatives.
Yesterday, Salta´s Senate passed into law the initiative that had been sent to the House of Representatives by the Governor of Salta, Gustavo Sáenz, and became the 14th province to implement it. The bill received immediate support from the State Supreme Court of Justice, the Attorney General and the General Public Defender.
“It is an important step for our young democracy”
"This is an important step for our young democracy ," said the representative of Rosario de la Frontera, Javier Mónico Graciano, when reporting on the law.
He pointed out that the trial by jury has a long history in societies around the world and that, in fact, it is three times mentioned in the Argentine Constitution, even after the various modifications that were made to the Magna Carta throughout history.
"It has always been a pending issue. It is a step that has not been taken in an improvised manner, but rather over many years of hard work in this regard ," said the legislator. He warned that trial by jury will be applied at first only for murders, estimating about 15 trials per year.
He stressed that the State Supreme Court of Justice of Salta has been working with a program of mock jury trials in high schools. "You can see how our young people do it with great enthusiasm and really with a lot of ability and they come to understand and comprehend a justice system like this one".
During the discussion of the bill, the Senate invited key actors from the Judiciary, such as the General Public Defender, Martín Diez Villa, Justices Fabián Vittar and Pablo López Viñals of the State Court of Justice of Salta and the Attorney General Pedro García Castiella.
Senator Leopoldo Salva (Evita Conducción), from the Los Andes department, supported the project. "I think it is innovative (...), very participatory," he said. He pointed out that other provinces have already moved forward with the implementation of this system. "The reality is that the Constitution of 1853 mandates that crimes shall be tried by juries. For me, it will change forever the criminal justice here in our province."
Salva stressed that the members of the jury must be randomly chosen from the voting lists and this will allow the citizens of his jurisdiction to participate. He emphasized that this will make it possible for "the people to have the power."
For Salva, the jury trial will improve the justice system and even the Government. "I think that important cases will be resolved in a very clear and objective way, because even today there is a lot of doubt about the Judiciary, and it is doubted precisely because there are conflicting vices. Everyone is friends, they know each other, one knows who is who. And so sometimes we doubt the verdicts of bench judges because of this reason. That is why I think that by participating, knowing, having this experience as well, our citizens are in better position to judge important cases".
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| Beatiful landscapes of Salta |
Senator Miguel Calabró (Evita Conducción) voted for the jury bill and says that more crimes must be included soon, not only aggravated homicides.
Calabró said that the jury trial will force the prosecutor to improve their investigations, otherwise they will be "embarrassed". He also stressed the lack of clear language in courtrooms and gave the example that judges' rulings are incomprehensible to those who are not lawyers. In addition, he stressed that juries may be made up of members of indigenous peoples.
Read more news here:
- Página 12 (6/12/24): "El senado aprobó el juicio por jurados en Salta" (ver)
- Diario Judicial (6/12/24): "Salta se suma a los juicios por jurados" (ver)
- El Tribuno (6/12/24): "Es ley la creación del sistema de juicio por jurado en Salta" (ver)
