Supreme Court Landmark Rulings: Jurisdiction Issues concerning the Autonomy of the City of Buenos Aires

I. Introduction

On April 4, 2019, the Argentine Supreme Court modified its precedent and decided: (i) in re “Bazán”, that the Local Supreme Court of the City of Buenos Aires will be in charge of resolving jurisdictional issues between national ,nonfederal, courts of City of Buenos Aires and local courts of CABA, and (ii) in re “GCBA vs. Prov. Córdoba”, that it has original jurisdiction to hear disputes between a Province and CABA.

Both “Bazán” [CSJ No. 4652/2015] and “GCBA vs. Prov. Córdoba” [CSJ No. 2084/2017] are based on precedents “Corrales” [Ruling No. 338:1517] and “Nisman” [Ruling No. 339:1342] where the Argentine Supreme Court (the “CSJN”, after its Spanish acronym) stated that the Argentine Constitution (the “CN”, after its Spanish acronym), as of the 1994 amendment, acknowledges the autonomy of the City of Buenos Aires (the “CABA”, after its Spanish acronym) and that, in this sense, the “national”, but nonfederal, qualification that the criminal, civil, commercial and labor courts of CABA have is merely transitory.

In the "Corrales" ruling (December 2015) the CSJN held that "the powers currently exercised by the national local justice [of CABA], which, it is worth restating, is not federal, must be transferred to the City of Buenos Aires" and, after emphasizing how much time had passed since the constitutional amendment of 1994, the CSJN exhorted the competent authorities to expedite the aforementioned transference.

In June 2018, based on “Corrales” and “Nisman”, the CSJN stated in "Marmol" [Case no. 341:611] that "it is not appropriate to equate the national nonfederal courts with the federal courts that have jurisdiction in the City of Buenos Aires" and changed its previous criteria by establishing that the CSJN will settle jurisdictional issues between National (nonfederal) Courts of CABA and Federal Courts of CABA.

Taking into account that, since "Corrales" there had been no significant advances, the CSJN, in the landmark cases reviewed here, referred to the grounds stated in “Corrales” and “Nisman” to change its previous precedent regarding other jurisdictional issues which involve: (i) non-federal courts that have jurisdiction in CABA and (ii) expanding the CSJN’s original jurisdiction to cases in which CABA is a party, as we describe below.

II. Conflicts of jurisdiction between National (nonfederal) Courts of CABA and Local Courts of CABA

In “Bazán” it was decided that the Local Supreme Court of CABA should settle conflicts of jurisdiction raised between a Local Criminal Court of CABA and a National (nonfederal) Juvenile Court of CABA.

In its previous legal doctrine, the CSJN was the competent court to settle conflicts of jurisdiction between a national (nonfederal) court of CABA and a local court of CABA (as in the referred case), on the grounds that they do not have "a common superior court to resolve them" (Section 24.7, Decree Law 1285/58).

The CSJN, with a majority vote by Justices Maqueda, Lorenzetti and Rosatti, changed its precedent on the basis that "the current scenario shows that the Argentine Government and the Local Government of the City of Buenos Aires have made minor progress in order to accomplish the transference of national nonfederal justice to the sphere that it should have from a constitutional point of view”, and that the "inactivity" referred to must be considered "a serious institutional imbalance of one of the structural mechanisms of federalism's workings".

On those grounds, the CSJN interpreted that Section 24.7 of Decree Law 1285/58 gives it authority to: (i) settle conflicts of jurisdiction or (ii) decide which court should settle them. In this sense, it established that "from now on, the Local Supreme Court of the City of Buenos Aires will be the court in charge of hearing conflicts of jurisdiction that arise -as in this case- between two nonfederal courts with jurisdiction in that city".

III. Original jurisdiction of the CSJN in conflicts between CABA and a Province

In “GCBA vs. Prov. Córdoba” the CSJN decided that has original jurisdiction over the executive proceeding initiated by CABA against the Province of Córdoba, a decision comprised of the joint vote of Justices Maqueda, Lorenzetti and Rosatti and by the vote of Justice Rosenkrantz.

Previous legal doctrine held that CABA did not have a status similar to provinces; therefore, disputes that arose between CABA and a Province had to be resolved by the provincial courts involved (Ruling No. 330:5279), while disputes between two or more provinces were, and still are, heard by the CSJN in the original jurisdiction (Section 117, CN and Section 24.1, Decree Law 1285/58).

The CSJN’s change of precedent was made on the grounds that "[t]he City of Buenos Aires, as occurs with the provinces, is affected in its autonomy when forced to litigate before courts from other jurisdictions", and "[t]o not affect the continuity of its institutionalization process, the city must generate a self-government understood as the right to enact and enforce its own laws without submitting to any other authority, but it also must have the same possibility as provinces to have an impartial court to resolve disputes that may arise with them".

The CSJN invoked that it had already opened original jurisdiction for cases that are not specifically stated in Section 117 CN, as in for example, conflicts between a Province and the Federal State. Hence, the CSJN stated that "the City of Buenos Aires has the same position as provinces in the legal system that governs the jurisdiction of the federal courts and, therefore, the same right to the original jurisdiction of the Argentine Supreme Court".

IV.-Final comment

It is possible that the path taken by CSJN will lead it to establish further changes of precedent in similar issues. But until this occurs, we should remember that the CSJN has established that the reasoning behind its decisions cannot be understood in a general manner, but in relation to the circumstances of the particular case in which it was applied (Ruling No. 341:1768).