Cosmologies of Federal Criminal Procedural Reform: Democratisating and Humanizating Criminal Justice in Argentina

MIRA, JULIETA

Criminal Legalities in the Global South

Routledge

Lugar: New York; Año: 2020; p. 105 - 123

 In Argentina,the reform of the Federal Criminal Procedural Code (Código Procesal Penal de la Nación) has been a continuous political process that was intensified  with the transition to democracy in 1983. Since then, the main thrust behind the reform of the justice system centered on the shift from an "inquisitorial system" towards an "accusatorial system." While the process has mobilized different sectors of Argentine society, it has also made the differences in opinions between professional and political actors involved in the reforms in the legal arena more apparent. Furthermore, the debate over the reforms has been shaped by a series of cosmologies, or idealistic representations of the legal social order, constructed by these actors. This chapter seeks to explore the campaign to reform the Federal Criminal Procedure Code by one group of legal experts. Based on an ethnography of the debates concerning the reform, it is describes how these experts have built consent among academics and politicians over the need to reform the criminal legislation. Moreover, the paper examines four central cosmologies that have shaped the debate, namely: 1) democratisation and human rights; 2) "humanizationof criminal justice"; 3) "prosecution of the great crime"; and 4) modernizationand overcoming the "old and obsolete." This chapter concludes by demonstrating how these four cosmologies can visualise the construction of a rhetoric regarding the political necessity of reformin a democratic nation in the Global South.