On December 13, three days after taking over the presidency, President Raúl Alfonsín announced on the national television that he would send a bill to the Congress to declare the National Pacification Act (Act No. 22.924, also known as the Self-Amnesty Act) unconstitutional and irrevocably null and void. The act had been signed by Reynaldo Bignone on September 22 the previous year and declared extinguished the criminal prosecution of actions “aimed at preventing, calling upon, or putting an end” to “terrorist or subversive activities.”

On that same day, Alfonsín ordered the prosecution of the armed organizations heads that had operated in the country since the end of the 1960s (Executive Order No. 157) and of the members of the first three military Juntas that had taken over power between 1976 and 1983 (Executive Order No.158). On December 29, the National Congress annulled the self-amnesty law.