Cristina Kirchner defended a pedophile priest sentenced to 25 years in prison

In a decision that reaffirms the value of the Constitution, the principle of criminal legality, and respect for procedural guarantees, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation decided to dismiss the case against priest Justo José Ilarraz, who was convicted in 2018 to 25 years in prison for sexual abuse committed at the Seminario Arquidiocesano Nuestra Señora del Cenáculo de Paraná, between 1984 and 1995. The highest court held that the accusations, filed more than two decades after the events, were time-barred according to the Penal Code.

As expected, the former president and convicted Cristina Fernández de Kirchner quickly reacted against the ruling. "Speechless", she wrote on her X account, accompanying a note from the newspaper Clarín reporting on the judicial decision. The former president, currently removed from any institutional office, keeps her well-known strategy of attacking the Supreme Court whenever a ruling doesn't align with her ideological or political interests.

The ruling was signed by judges Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti, who considered admissible the extraordinary appeal filed by Ilarraz's defense attorney, Jorge Muñoz. In the decision, it was made clear that, although the reported acts are "extremely serious" and the difficulties that victims may face in reporting in contexts of subordination are recognized, this doesn't allow for the retroactive application of harsher criminal laws.

In this regard, the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law was cited: Laws 26.705 and 27.206—which exclude the statute of limitations for certain crimes against minors—can't be applied to acts that occurred between 1988 and 1992. Therefore, article 62, paragraph 2, of the Penal Code applies, which establishes a maximum of 12 years for the statute of limitations of criminal action.

"The criminal action against him has been time-barred—at least—since 2005", the ruling states. According to the decision, the events occurred more than 19 years before the criminal complaint and 32 years before the dismissal ruling was issued.

Another central point of the ruling is the categorical clarification that the reported acts can't be equated with crimes against humanity. "Acts that fall within the category of crimes against humanity are of a radically different nature from those reported here", the court stated, thus closing any attempt to force legal analogies to avoid the statute of limitations.

The Ilarraz case had significant public impact since his conviction in May 2018, when he was 65 years old. The sentence was handed down by judges Alicia Vivian, Gustavo Pimentel, and Carolina Castagno. In December 2023, Pope Francis ordered Ilarraz's expulsion from the clerical state, a canonical measure independent of the criminal process.

The abuses allegedly occurred at the Minor Seminary, where Ilarraz was prefect of discipline, teacher, confessor, and spiritual director of first- and second-year high school adolescents. According to testimonies, his role also included recruiting new seminarians in rural towns, managing the seminary's finances, and serving as the archbishop's driver.

In total, it is estimated that there was an average of 18 seminarians per class, many of whom abandoned their vocation after the abuses, although others went on to be ordained as priests.

One of the most relevant testimonies was that of Hernán Rausch, who decided to formally report what had happened after decades of silence and after receiving few responses from church authorities. "We were children. We didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation, and for years I questioned what happened. In 2010, I went to speak with the archdiocese asking why they kept him as a priest after what he did. That was all I wanted to know. It was an act of conscience on my part that this couldn't go on like this", he recounted.

The Supreme Court acted in accordance with the law, respecting legality and the deadlines established by the Penal Code in force at the time of the events. Despite the social repudiation caused by abuse crimes, the Rule of Law requires that any criminal conviction be based on clear, predictable, and non-retroactive rules. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's attempt to impose "emotional justice" that disregards the Constitution once again demonstrates her contempt for republican institutions.