(Washington, DC) - Human Rights Watch hailed today's decision by the Federal Court of Buenos Aires to nullify Argentina's "due obedience" and "full stop" amnesty laws. A three-judge appeals panel ruled unanimously to uphold a March 6 decision by federal judge Gabriel Cavallo that found the 1986 and 1987 amnesty laws to be unconstitutional and contrary to Argentina's international human rights obligations.
"This is tremendous news for thousands of families who lost loved ones in the brutal repression that followed the 1976 military coup, and who remain anxious to discover their fate," said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division. "It is a historic breakthrough that crowns the progress made in recent years by the Argentine courts to bring the guilty to account, and opens the way for further prosecutions."
Julio Simón, a former police officer implicated in the abduction, torture, and "disappearance" in 1978 of a Chilean-Argentine couple, José Poblete and Gertrudis Hlaczik, will now be put on trial. His ill-health has so far prevented the indictment of a fellow former officer, Juan Antonio del Cerro. Simón is the first officer to be indicted for "disappearances" since 1987, when the due obedience law - one of Argentina's two amnesty laws -- blocked prosecutions of all except officers in positions of command during Argentina's so-called dirty war.
The defendants' attorneys now have ten days in which to lodge an appeal against the ruling, which is expected eventually to reach the Argentine Supreme Court.
On June 1, 2001, Human Rights Watch, together with Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the Federal Court in support of the lower court's ruling in the case.
