The Argentine judiciary on Thursday suspended the resolution that allowed the former president (2007-2015) and current vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, to receive a double life pension: hers as former president and another for a widow due to the death of her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).
In a short decision published today by the judiciary, the surrogate federal judge Ezequiel Pérez Nami, belonging to court no. 10 of the social security jurisdiction, accepted three appeals against the sentence by which, at the end of last year, it allowed Cristina Fernández to collect these two benefits simultaneously.
One of the appeals came from the National Administration of Social Security (ANSES), while the other two were made by opposition lawmakers.
“Appeals filed in accordance with the provisions of Article 243 of the CPCCN (Code of Civil and Commercial Procedure of the Nation),” Judge Pérez Nami explained in the judgment.
With this decision, Fernández will receive a single pension until the National Chamber of Social Security takes a final position on this issue.
The former president received a non-contributory pension in December 2010 for the death of her husband from cardiac arrest, a benefit considered a monthly life allowance for former presidents who paid her because she was the widow of a first president.
Five years later, at the end of his second term, Fernández began receiving another life pension, this time because he was president.
As it turned out, the former president received about 330,000 pesos (about $ 21,700 at the time, 3,753.95 current) per month before taxes for retirement as a former president and for widowhood.
In 2016, the former president filed a lawsuit after the Government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) issued a resolution requiring the election of a single life pension.
In his appeal, the then senator argued that the Administration “does not have the power to suspend the effects of a firm and consensual act” and considered that there are “subjective rights in its favor that can not be revoked, amended or replaced in the administrative headquarters.”
Thus, Fernández demanded the return of the widow’s pension for the death of former President Néstor Kirchner, as well as the amounts withheld as income tax.
Judge Pérez Nami himself agreed with the former president in December 2020 and allowed him to collect the two pensions again, a decision which is suspended after the ruling published today.