Argentina’s President Javier Milei temporarily appointed two Supreme Court judges by decree, bypassing Congress during its summer recess to push through a particularly controversial candidate in a move criticized as an overreach of executive power.
The president’s office said it was within Milei’s constitutional right to fill the two vacancies on the five-member panel as a matter of convenience and expediency. Argentina’s top court “cannot carry out its normal role with only three justices,” the statement added.
Milei nominated federal judge Ariel Lijo and lawyer Manuel García-Mansilla last year but struggled to get approval in the Senate, where his libertarian coalition controls just seven of the 72 seats. The Senate did not reject the candidates outright, either.
“The Senate chose to remain silent” even though “the suitability of the candidates for the position was demonstrated,” Milei’s office said.
But lawmakers and officials have questioned the suitability of federal judge Lijo, who has been accused of conspiracy, money laundering, and illicit enrichment, and has come under scrutiny for more ethics violations than almost any other judge in his court’s history.
Human Rights Watch criticized Milei’s move as “one of the most serious attacks against the independence of the Supreme Court in Argentina since the return of democracy.”
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