Cosmologies of Federal Criminal Procedural Reform: Democratizing and Humanizing Criminal Justice in Argentina

Abstract

In Argentina, the reform of the Código Procesal Penal de la Nación (Federal Criminal Procedural Code) 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” toward an “accusatorial system.” While the process has mobilized different sectors of Argentine society, it has also made the differences in opinions between actors involved (both political and professional) in the legal arena of reform 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, this chapter describes how these experts built consensus among academics and politicians over the need to reform criminal legislation. Furthermore, this chapter examines four central cosmologies that have shaped the debate – namely, 1) democratization and human rights, 2) “humanization of criminal justice,” 3) “prosecution of the great crime,” and 4) modernization and overcoming the “old and obsolete.” This chapter concludes by demonstrating how these four cosmologies can visualize the construction of a rhetoric regarding the political necessity of reform in a democratic nation in the Global South.