Last Thursday, in the "1 and 60" trial, former Minister of the Supreme Court, Dr. Adolfo Vázquez, testified. Summoned by one of the defense teams, he clearly, truthfully, and forcefully explained how the then newly elected President, Néstor Kirchner, in the apartment of Jorge Antonio, where he had been urgently summoned, "asked"—to be polite—for the Court to declare the constitutionality of the asymmetric pesification, and to validate the new law passed by Congress declaring the nullity of the Due Obedience and Final Point laws, which had been passed by the same Congress. Without being said, it is clear that human rights were to become state policy for the Kirchners ("K") and for this, it was necessary to "reopen" the cases against the military. Dr. Vázquez continued his account, always in the first person as an essential participant in this part of the real history, that it was impossible to comply with Kirchner's request because the Court had already declared the asymmetric pesification illegal and since the time of Alfonsin, the Court had declared the due obedience and final point laws constitutional in numerous rulings, as it had declared the pardon of Menem constitutional, making the military issue a res judicata and something that could not be reversed. This part of his testimony ended with an "anecdote" that paints a full picture of what would follow in the country: President Kirchner stood up, put his hand on his shoulder, looking at Jorge Antonio and snapped: "I told you we were wasting our time," and went to the kitchen. Faced with this, Dr. Vázquez's account continues, Jorge Antonio asked him to think it over and give him an answer the next day. Dr. Vázquez's compelling testimony continued, narrating that the next day he met again with Jorge Antonio and reiterated that he could not accede to Kirchner's requests because they were matters of res judicata and could not be reversed. Jorge Antonio conveyed to him that his position as a Minister of the Court was very weak, that several of his colleagues had already accepted Kirchner's request, and that he should do the same.
