MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: The right to demonstrate must be preserved, judge rules

Judge Kreplak decided in favor of protecting the people's freedom of movement but found no grounds to declare Minister Bullrich's anti-picketing protocol unconstitutional

Argentine law enforcement authorities have been banned by Federal Judge Ernesto Kreplak from filming Wednesday's demonstrations during the nationwide strike called for by opposition labor unions and groups in rejection of President Javier Milei's most-encompassing emergency decree and the so-called Omnibus Law bill seeking to curb public spending,

The La Plata magistrate ordered federal forces not to take any video footage nor intercept people in public transportation, thus granting a preventive habeas corpus requested by environmentalist groups sponsored by lawyer Fernando Cabaleiro citing what happened in demonstrations last month.

Kreplak ordered the federal Security Ministry ”to refrain from issuing orders to the security forces under its orbit that imply that next Wednesday, January 24, people be filmed and/or intercepted on public roads -particularly on board public transport or at the accesses to train units, all within the territorial jurisdiction of this court- in order to identify and/or search them without a prior court warrant, and without any of the circumstances provided for by art. 230 bis CPPN (Penal Procedural Code).“

The Ministry will also ”be required to specifically instruct the security forces under its orbit, so that, in any case in which the circumstances foreseen by art. 230 bis are considered to be configured, and consequently the police personnel carries out searches without prior judicial warrant, the relevant act is drawn up for the subsequent jurisdictional control, in compliance with the legal provisions in force.“

The plaintiffs argued that ”they have already been victims of filming and/or searches carried out by Federal Security Forces without any reason or judicial warrant, due to their participation on 12/20/23 and 12/23/23, in different marches and calls, when they went in public transport from the towns where they live in the province of Buenos Aires to the City of Buenos Aires,” the judge said.

Kreplak insisted that filming and/or intercepting people without a warrant for the mere fact of presuming that they are going to participate in a social mobilization would imply an illegitimate restriction to their freedom of movement and other constitutional rights, it was explained.

However, the judge ruled against declaring the unconstitutionality of the so-called anti-picketing protocol penned by Minister Patricia Bullrich.