The Argentine Supreme Court of Justice declared an article of a 2019 presidential decree issued by then-President Mauricio Macri unconstitutional, in a decision that limits the president’s use of Necessity and Emergency Decrees (DNU, in Spanish).
The decision was reached unanimously by the three members who currently make up the Supreme Court — Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti — on the grounds that the Executive Branch failed to demonstrate the existence of a situation of necessity and emergency that would justify amending by decree a matter under Congress’s jurisdiction.
Macri’s decree amended the Fair Trade regime, previously regulated by Law 22.802, to require intervention by the National Court of Appeals for Federal Civil and Commercial Matters.
However, after retail company Cencosud challenged a fine for mispricing, the court declared the requirement unconstitutional. The case was then referred to the Federal Administrative Court, which also declined to hear it, ultimately sending the dispute to the Supreme Court.
In the Court’s view, regulation of the jurisdiction of federal courts is a matter that the National Constitution assigns “exclusively” to Congress.
