Initial Stage

Additionally, a commission was created to investigate the events. It was the CONADEP. The government also pushed for the prosecution of the leaders of the armed organizations that had operated in the country since the late 1960s and had survived the systematic extermination plan.

Vis-à-vis this scenario, human rights organizations defined three primary goals: to provide documentation on human rights violations, to advocate for the civilian justice system to conduct criminal proceedings against all those responsible, and to guarantee the participation of the victims in the process of justice.

Discussions about the Code of Military Justice took place in the National Congress. Act No. 23,049, which amended it, set forth that trials had to begin before military courts. Yet, it also stipulated that civilian judges would have to review all the sentences and undertake judicial cases in the event of delays in military investigations. Furthermore, it limited the scope of the duty of obedience as an excuse for criminal liability, excluding atrocious and aberrant acts.

The government had modified the federal jurisdiction of the City of Buenos Aires (the Federal Capital City). Judges and prosecutors appointed in the democratic era were assigned to the Trial of the Juntas. Under Item 30 of its ruling, the court extended the scope of these trials to include senior officers and anyone who had played an active role in the illegal repression. This led to the opening of trials across different parts of the country, which were organized around clandestine detention centers.

oral testimonies

The impunity period

The military response was swift; some mid-level commanders organized uprisings in military barracks. As a result, the government promoted the passage of the Clean Slate Act, which established a sixty-day limit for summoning defendants. The swift action of justice officials, who summoned all the individuals accused in record time, dismantled the government's claim to guarantee a high level of impunity.

The Due Obedience Act was passed in response to the renewed military pressure. It put an end to the trials after determining that the defendants had acted under coercion, following the orders of their superiors whom they could not disobey. Judges could not review such a presumption. Various judicial stakeholders refused to apply the Due Obedience Act until the Supreme Court of Justice upheld it as constitutional in June 1987. The struggle also took to the streets, where mass demonstrations demanded its repeal. Between 1989 and 1990, the pardons ordered by President Carlos Menem for the commanders convicted in the Trial of the Juntas and other defendants strengthened impunity even more.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) played a crucial role during the dictatorship in Argentina. In 1979, the commission visited the country and documented human rights violations. As the local model of impunity became entrenched, the IACHR began to receive plenty of petitions claiming that access to justice had been obstructed. In 1992, the IACHR issued a substantive report (28/92) stating that the Clean Slate and Due Obedience Acts, along with the pardons for military personnel, were contrary to the American Convention on Human Rights.

In this context, human rights organizations adopted two strategies: one aimed at getting to know the truth, while the other focused on searching for the disappeared and pursuing prosecution in court in other countries.

The first strategy, instigated by human rights organizations in 1995, gave rise to the Trials for the Truth. Prosecutions at that time did not seek criminal punishment but the investigation of events, the determination of responsibility levels, and the search for the disappeared. In 2000 and within the framework of an amicable settlement before the IACHR, the Argentine State recognized the right of the families to know the truth about what had happened to the disappeared persons. Thus, trials were held throughout the country. In addition, the Argentine State committed to the Latin American Initiative for the Identification of Disappeared Persons. A few years later, the United Nations recognized this right as an obligation of States in the face of serious human rights violations. Once again, judges heard testimonies about torture, murder, and disappearances, which brought the crimes perpetrated by the dictatorship back to the front pages and shocked society.

The second strategy consisted of criminal prosecution of the individuals responsible for crimes committed against victims of foreign nationality or the application of the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows for certain international crimes to be judged in any country. As a result, trials were initiated in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, and international arrest warrants were issued against military personnel in Argentina, exerting, in turn, severe pressure on the country's authorities and the Judiciary.

Baby theft cases had not been included in the impunity laws and were prosecuted as the discovery and identification of children, driven by Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, continued. Towards the end of the 1990s, in addition to pursuing the direct perpetrators of such thefts, the Judiciary was called upon to investigate members of the military Juntas for implementing a systematic plan to abduct the children of the disappeared persons and give them to other families, substituting their identities. Key figures such as Jorge Rafael Videla and Emilio Massera were detained and convicted years later.

The accumulation of these processes created a favorable scenario for a new stage of justice.

oral testimonies

Reopening stage

In 2000, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and CELS filed a legal case to overturn the impunity laws. The strategy adopted entailed highlighting a paradox: while the theft of a little girl could be investigated, the forced disappearance of her mother and father went unpunished. The initial declaration of unconstitutionality by a lower court judge occurred in 2001. As if in a cascading effect, several provincial courts subsequently declared these laws unconstitutional. In 2003, the National Congress declared the Clean Slate and Due Obedience Acts null and void. The Supreme Court of Justice confirmed their unconstitutionality in 2005 in a ruling that became known as "Simón ruling."

From then on, the trials concerning crimes against humanity were resumed. Vis-à-vis the overwhelming number of events, perpetrators, and evidence involved, cases were organized and sorted by clandestine detention centers. However, they were later grouped into the so-called "mega-cases" to address a larger number of victims and defendants, while minimizing excessive exposure. Despite these efforts, the pursuit of justice encountered many difficulties and resistance. In addition, it faced significant delays, particularly in connection with the organization of oral trials and the higher court's review of rulings handed down by oral courts.

Human rights organizations began to present themselves as institutional plaintiffs in trials for crimes against humanity, authorized first by case law and later by the law. Their active participation represented a significant boost for the trials and facilitated the assessment of the process as a whole. In addition, they helped to formulate specific proposals to the different Governmental branches to advance the prosecution.

oral testimonies 

The strategies to advance the process of justice included promoting the creation of support programs, areas, and institutions within both the Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor's Office, as well as within the Executive Branch. They included the Office of the Prosecutor for Crimes against Humanity of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Specialized Unit for Cases of Children Misappropriation during the period of State-Sponsored Terrorism, the Superintendence Unit for Crimes against Humanity of the Supreme Court of Justice, and the Inter-Branch Commission, the Program for Truth and Justice Program of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, "Dr. Fernando Ulloa" Center for Assistance to the Victims of Human Rights Violations, the National Archive of Remembrance, the Human Rights Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, and the Human Rights Directorate of the Ministry of Security, both with professional archival teams.

Previously, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, institutions such as the National Genetic Data Bank and the National Commission for the Right to Identity had been created to promote the search for children who had been kidnapped, supported by the active involvement of civil society organizations.