“The Constitution does not speak of autonomyspeaks of a statute being issued, and I also believe that this City belongs to all Argentines, ”said the vice president yesterday Cristina Fernandez de Kirchnerwhich called “rethink the jurisdictional functioning” of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, during a meeting with senators and deputies from the Front of All that took place in the Blue Room of the Senate of the Nation.
Dozens of leaders of Together for Change, from Horacio Rodriguez Larreta to María Eugenia Vidal, they went out to the intersection. And they highlighted article 129 of the reformed Constitution of 1994, which reads: “The city of Buenos Aires will have an autonomous government regimewith its own powers of legislation and jurisdiction, and its head of government will be elected directly by the people of the city”.
And he adds: “A law will guarantee the interests of the national State, while the city of Buenos Aires is the capital of the Nation. Within the framework of the provisions of this article, the Congress of the Nation will summon the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires so that, through the representatives they choose for that purpose, dictate the Organizational Statute of their institutions”.
As of the 1994 reform, the City of Buenos Aires took the status of “federated constitutional city“, a legal position that cannot be assimilated with that of the provincial municipalities or with that of the provinces, beyond the fact that it shares some of its characteristics.
Until 1994, the then Federal Capital was the only city whose inhabitants did not have the right to elect their rulers. The executive power was exercised a mayor appointed by the president of the Nation, the Legislative Power was the National Congress, which had only delegated some powers to the Deliberative Council, and Justice was national”, writes José Pedro Bustos in his project for the City of Buenos Aires Guarantees Law.
As a consequence of the provisions of the article 129 of the 1994 Constitutionand invoking the attribution referred to the National Congress, in 1995 Law 24,588, known by the name of “Coffee Law”alluding to his mentor, Antonio Cafierothen a national senator who promoted the controversial project.
A) Yes, the Congress limited the scope of the autonomy that the National Constitution reformed in 1994 had granted the City of Buenos Aires: prevented the creation of its own police in the City of Buenos Aires, since armed security continued to be the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior. And it limited the Buenos Aires Justice, the administration and the code of the port of Buenos Aires, the regulation of transport and public services, and the Registry of Real Estate.
Questioned precisely because of its constitutionality, the “Coffee Law” recognizes in its 4th article: “The Autonomous Government of the city of Buenos Aires will be governed by the local institutions established by the Organizational Statute issued for that purpose. Its head of government, its legislators and other officials will be elected or appointed without intervention of the national government”.
And it adds in its article 7: “The Government of the City of Buenos Aires will exercise the functions and powers of security in all non-federal subjects. The national government will continue to exercise them until that exercise is effectively assumed by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires”.
On October 1, 1996, the Constitution of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires was sanctioned, starting point for the realization of the autonomy of the City, which was built from the election by direct vote of the first Head of Government and its Legislature. And autonomy allowed the City to elect authorities, pass laws, have its own justice system, and finally its own police.
The changes to the “Cafiero Law” were the reason for a summit in 2007 between Néstor Kirchner and Mauricio Macriin which the then president promised the Head of Government, to promote changes in the norm that tend to deepen the autonomy of Buenos Aires. The obstacles were raised then in the economic: The Constitution requires that the transfers include the corresponding budget, and the legislators of the interior opposed the transfer, which would come with Macri as president.
In 2012with Cristina Kirchner as president, the subway management transfer, a recognition of the autonomy of the City. The partial transfer of the police was carried out in 2016. And in 2017 they signed, among Macri and Larreta, agreements for the transfer of powers in the general inspection of justiceproperty registry, national justice and some criminal justice bodies.
In 2018 The city sanctioned Election Code that organized the Buenos Aires process through the creation of the Electoral Management Institute, and installed gender parity, the possibility of unifying the local elections with the national ones, and the previous debates between candidates.
by RN
