For years we were told that there was nothing to be done about juvenile crime. That holding someone accountable was stigmatizing. That talking about consequences was punitive. While they debated words, reality moved forward.
That is why we promoted and enacted Law 27.801, which establishes a new Juvenile Criminal Regime starting at age 14. A long-demanded reform that came to end an anomaly: adolescents capable of committing very serious crimes in front of a State that, in many cases, did not have an adequate response to provide to them or their victims.
But something unusual happened in the Province of Buenos Aires. The judge of Lomas de Zamora Marta Pascual decided to suspend the application of the law for sixty days, among other arguments, due to the conditions of the Buenos Aires system to accommodate the adolescents covered by the new regime.
Fortunately, the Appeals Court overturned that decision and the law was back in effect. But the episode exposed a problem: the Province, governed by Axel Kicillof, was not prepared to implement a national norm.
A demand that leadership ignored for years
Lowering the age of criminal responsibility is not a libertarian whim. It is a demand that a significant part of society has maintained for over a decade. Surveys confirm this emphatically: more than seven out of ten Argentines support reducing the age of criminal responsibility, and this backing completely crosses the political spectrum.
In fact, even Cristina Fernández de Kirchner herself, in 2011, stated that it seemed logical to discuss a reduction in age and that the decision belonged to Congress.
Moreover, 14 years old does not constitute an international exception. Various European and Latin American countries establish similar or lower ages of criminal responsibility. Argentina, with a regime starting at 16 years, had a minimum age higher than that of many countries.
What happened in Congress was democracy, not a whim
Law 27.801 did not come out of a drawer nor was it imposed by decree. It was debated for months, with the participation of all blocs, specialists, victim organizations, and even those who opposed the reform. And when the time came to vote in the Chamber of Deputies, we gave it half approval with a resounding result: 149 affirmative votes against 100 negative, out of 249 legislators present.
That is exactly what should happen in a democracy: there is discussion, positions are heard, and then the representatives of the people decide. Period.
Furthermore, contrary to what certain guarantee-oriented discourse seeks to establish, the new regime does not aim to fill prisons with 14-year-olds. It establishes measures of accountability and alternatives, reserving deprivation of liberty for the cases provided for by law.
Two questions that no one wants to answer
As an elected representative of the people, I ask Judge Marta Pascual: if in your own ruling you acknowledge that "the effective affecting or violation of rights is not necessary" to suspend the law, and that you act based on a "precautionary principle" in the face of something that "could provoke" the norm, with what authority do you claim the power to halt a law debated and democratically voted on, based on a hypothetical harm that has not even occurred? When the Justice begins to legislate on what "could happen," it stops administering justice and starts administering politics. And that, in a republic, has a name: it is the overreach of one power over another.
The second question I direct to Governor Axel Kicillof: if you are so concerned about adolescents, if you talk so much about rights and guarantees, why after years of management do the very juvenile detention centers in the province not even meet minimum standards? The judge herself documents this in her ruling: overcrowded institutions, without adequate building conditions, without full access to education or vocational training. That is the true abandonment, the one that bears the signature of those who today disguise themselves as defenders of children, so they do not have to provide explanations.
The problem was never the law. The problem is that the province, after years of Kirchnerist management, does not even have the buildings in condition to comply with it.
The perfect excuse
The fundamental discussion is simple: Congress enacted a new regime and the Province must be in a position to apply it. It cannot turn its own lack of preparation into an argument against the law. Much less use the deficiencies accumulated over the years as an excuse to avoid taking on a responsibility that belongs to it.
The Appeals Court corrected the suspension and the law was back in effect. But what happened made something evident: when it comes time to assume responsibilities, the Buenos Aires government again finds an explanation outside.
Those who commit serious crimes must answer for their actions. But we must also think of those who have too often been sidelined from these discussions: the victims.
They must be a priority for the State.
