News of the historic result led to jubilant celebrations among a large crowd of human rights activists, who had spent the day in front of the Congress building demanding that the laws be annulled.
Campaigners against the immunity laws claim that they are invalid because they were passed by a civilian government under threat of military revolt from officers determined not to face justice in the years after the return to democracy in 1983.
The motion to annul the laws was introduced by the left-wing deputy, Patricia Walsh, whose father and sister died in shootouts with the military during the 1970s. “We have to regain the ability to impart justice,” she told deputies.
Error processing SSI fileThe vote does not mean the immediate end to immunity. The right of deputies to vote to annul the laws is disputed. Several constitutional lawyers have argued that only the Supreme Court can declare a law invalid.
Observers believe that the new President, Nestor Kirchner, has encouraged Congress to move against the immunity laws in an effort to exert pressure on the Supreme Court into declaring the laws unconstitutional. Last week the court said that it would not bow to pressure when it is due to consider the constitutionality of the laws, in around a month’s time.
Before then the upper house, the Senate, will hold its own debate on annulling the immunity laws, possibly as early as next week.
Since taking power in May Señor Kirchner, a Peronist, has moved quickly to undo the mesh of legislation that has protected the military since the return to civilian rule. The President, who was detained by the military during the 1970s, has already purged the top ranks of the armed forces and lifted a ban on the extradition of former officers to face trial abroad.
More than 40 leading “dirty warriors”, including the former dictator Jorge Videla, are in custody facing extradition to Spain where they face charges relating to crimes committed against Spanish citizens in Argentina during the dictatorship. But human rights groups and Señor Kirchner have made it clear that they would rather see the accused men tried in Argentina, the main goal of Tuesday’s vote.
Opinion polls in Argentina show that people favour ending the former officers’ immunity by a margin of two to one. Opposition to putting the men on trial is split between those who seek to justify the army’s actions during the 1970s and those who deplore its excesses but say now is not the time to reopen old divisions in Argentine society. These critics say that Señor Kirchner should instead focus his energy on pulling the country out of its worst economic crisis.
Voting against the move in Congress were Peronist deputies loyal to the former President, Carlos Menem, as well as deputies from several smaller centre-right parties. Among them was Ricardo Bussi, the son of a prominent former general facing charges of human rights abuses.
Amid a chorus of boos and whistles he told the chamber that nothing would bring back the dead. “It is time to end with these questions. Nothing is served by this sterile debate,” he said.
As many as 2,000 former military officers could face trial for the disappearance, torture and murder of what human rights groups say was up to 30,000 people during the military dictatorship of 1976-83.
An official commission established after the return to democracy to investigate the “dirty war” reported that about 10,000 people were killed by the military or “disappeared”. The killings took place as the military and its leftist opponents struggled for control of the country in the 1970s. The military’s defence has always been that it was engaged in a war with Marxist guerrillas. But its campaign of secret killing also targeted opposition student leaders, union organisers, journalists and religious aid workers.