Agentina Law & Government
Government & Politics
Argentina's political framework is a federal presidential representative democratic republic, in which the President of Argentina is both head of state and head of government, complemented by a pluriform multi-party system. The current president (2007) is Néstor Kirchner, with Daniel Scioli as vice president. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the spouse of Nestor Kirchner, won the October 2007 presidential election and will take office on December 10, 2007.[4]
The Argentine Constitution of 1853 mandates a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the national and provincial level.
Executive power resides in the President and his or her cabinet. The President and Vice President are directly elected to four-year terms, limited to two consecutive terms, and the cabinet ministers are appointed by the president.
Legislative power is vested in the bicameral National Congress or Congreso de la Nación, consisting of a Senate (Senado) of seventy-two seats, and a Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados) of 257 members.
Senators serve six-year terms, with one-third standing for reelection every two years. Members of the Chamber of Deputies are directly elected to four-year term via a system of proportional representation, with half of the members of the lower house being elected every two years. A third of the candidates presented by the parties must be women.
The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Argentine Supreme Court of Justice has seven members who are appointed by the President in consultation with the Senate. The rest of the judges are appointed by the Council of Magistrates of the Nation, a secretariat composed of representatives of judges, lawyers, the Congress, and the executive.
Foreign Relations
Argentina is a member of Mercosur, an international bloc which has some legislative supranational functions. Mercosur is composed of five full members: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It has five associate members without full voting rights: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Argentina was the only country from Latin America to participate in the 1991 Gulf War under mandate of the United Nations. It was also the only Latin American country involved in every phase of the Haiti operation. Argentina has contributed worldwide to peacekeeping operations, including in El Salvador-Honduras-Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador-Peru, Western Sahara, Angola, Kuwait, Cyprus, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Timor Leste. In recognition of its contributions to international security, U.S. President Bill Clinton designated Argentina as a major non-NATO ally in January 1998. In 2005, it was elected as a temporary member of the UN Security Council.
In 1993, Argentina launched the United Nations White Helmets indicative of humanitarian aid.
On November 4-November 5, 2005, the Argentine city of Mar del Plata hosted the Fourth Summit of the Americas. This summit was marked by a number of anti-U.S. protests. As of 2006, Argentina has been emphasizing Mercosur as its first international priority; by contrast, during the 1990s, it relied more heavily on its relationship with the United States.
Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), the South Shetland Islands, the South Sandwich Islands and almost 1 million km² in Antarctica, between the 25°W and the 74°W meridians and the 60°S parallel. For more than a century, there has been an Argentine presence at the Orcadas Base.
Argentina is a founding signatory and permanent consulting member of the Antarctic Treaty System and the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat is established in Buenos Aires.
Law
The Legal system of Argentina is one of the few in the world that mix Civil and Common law. The two pillars of the Civil system are the Constitution of Argentina (1853) and the Civil Code of Argentina (1871).
The Argentine Constitution of 1853 was an attempt to unite the unstable the young country of the United Provinces of the River Plate under a single law, creating as well the different organisms needed to run a country. The constitution was finally approved after failed signatory attempts in 1813 (see Assembly of 1813), 1819 and 1831 (Pacto Federal).
The Civil Code was written by Argentine jurist Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield, and started being effective on January 1, 1871. Beyond the influence of the Spanish legal tradition, the Argentine Civil Code was also inspired by the Draft of the Brazilian Civil Code, the Draft of the Spanish Civil Code of 1851, the Napoleonic code and the Chilean Civil Code among others. The sources of this Civil Code also include various theoretical legal works, mainly of the great French jurists of the 19th century. It was the first Civil Law that consciously adopted as its cornerstone the distinction between i. rights from obligations and ii. real property rights, thus distancing itself from the French model.
