The Court rejected Cristina Kirchner's recusal against Judge Ricardo Lorenzetti.

The Supreme Court of Justice rejected on Wednesday, considering it inadmissible, the recusal filed by the convicted former president for corruption, Cristina Kirchner, against Judge Ricardo Lorenzetti in the context of the complaint appeal related to her six-year prison sentence in the case known as "Vialidad."

This way, the highest judicial body is fully authorized to decide whether to uphold the sentence and the lifetime disqualification from holding public office. The ruling was issued one day after the former president announced her candidacy for provincial deputy for the Third Electoral Section of Buenos Aires province.

So far, there is no official information on when the Court will rule. In an eight-page resolution, Judges Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Lorenzetti himself argued that "the recusal case is not based on objectively verifiable circumstances" that would justify removing the judge from the case.

The former president had requested Lorenzetti's removal after, in television statements, the judge indicated that her complaint appeal would be solved soon, in relation to the six-year sentence and the disqualification from holding public office.

The judges emphasized that "the recusal with cause is an exceptional mechanism, of restrictive interpretation, with strictly established assumptions, for extraordinary cases, considering that its application causes the displacement of the legal and normal jurisdiction of the judges and the consequent alteration of the constitutional principle of the natural judge."

They also recalled that "the traditional doctrine of this Court, which has remained unchanged throughout its history, is that when recusals raised by the parties are manifestly inadmissible, they must be dismissed outright."

The Supreme Court judges also pointed out that "the recusal of the judges of this Supreme Court must be raised in the brief filing the extraordinary appeal or in its response," which did not occur in this case. The former president filed the complaint appeal on February 13, but only submitted the recusal on May 5.

They also ruled out the existence of a valid reason to remove the judge, stating that "this has not happened in this case, since the appellant doesn't cite any of the grounds provided for in the aforementioned procedural rules, but merely generally claims that Judge Lorenzetti would lack impartiality. Such a defect is sufficient to support the rejection, without further procedure, of the recusal."

According to the ruling, the precedent "Llerena" invoked by the defense was also not applicable, since in that case the judge was removed from the case due to the existence of "objective and verifiable circumstances" that justified her removal, which doesn't occur in this instance.

Finally, the ruling adds that "it also doesn't cite any specific excerpt from the May 1 interview that would justify the conclusion that both events are linked and that Judge Lorenzetti lacks impartiality to judge this case."

"It only makes an inference based on an opinion article published on May 4, which is manifestly insufficient to justify the need to remove one of the natural judges of this case, with the special gravity that such a decision has when the recusal is directed against a member of this Court," it concludes.