President Javier Milei’s economic deregulation mega-decree has been met with intense opposition in court, with many immediately calling for the entire thing to be declared unconstitutional. Since the country’s top labor court blocked its labor reforms on Wednesday due to protective writs against that specific chapter of the decree, a surge of writs from different sectors is trying to replicate the move.

Those first protective writs that went against the entire “decree of necessity and urgency” — known as DNU in Spanish — were being included in a class action in the Administrative Litigation Chamber. However, on Thursday Judge Enrique Lavié Pico ruled that they would be addressed individually instead.

That’s when the new wave of injunctions crashed into the Buenos Aires city-based court, with over 40 filed since the DNU was announced on December 20, according to news agency Télam.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the National Labor Appeals Chamber issued two temporary stays that suspended the labor chapter of the DNU specifically, following protective writs filed by the General Confederation of Labor and the Workers’ branch of the Argentine Workers’ Central (CGT and CTA-T in Spanish, respectively) which went against that section of the decree.

On Thursday, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni said Milei’s administration will take this matter to the Supreme Court. However, they have yet to inform when that will happen, or if it will be a series of appeals against the different writs.

The 366-article DNU modifies and annuls an unprecedented number of laws, affecting a vast array of economic sectors and workers’ rights. Among the parties filing new protective writs in response are the Press Workers’ Argentine Federation (Fatpren in Spanish) and the Argentine Federation of Travel and Tourism Companies (Faevyt).

Fatpren’s injunction targets the modifications to the audiovisual communications regulation law. The decree re-categorizes radio and television as “essential services” that must operate at no less than 75% capacity, limiting the number of workers that could go on strike..

The decree also eliminated tourism agencies’ regulations, including mandated travel insurance for high-school graduation trips. 

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Writs addressing the private healthcare modifications included in the DNU have also been filed in different courts. Since the decree took effect on December 29, companies have increased private healthcare prices by 40% since it lifted state limitations. According to Télam, a judge filed a protective writ requesting the DNU be declared unconstitutional because this section affected him personally. The judge, Maximiliano Ceballos, also asked healthcare provider Swiss Medical to revise his monthly fee according to what the Health Ministry considers fit.

The judiciary is currently in summer recess, but some courts have lifted it to analyze the protective writs presented against the DNU. Others are also considering doing the same to address the writs filed by the Grouped Tenants Civil Association and the Argentine Sports Confederation prior to the labor court’s decision. Milei’s decree struck down the rental law, allowing landlords to establish rental contracts in foreign currencies and eliminating maximum and minimum rental periods, and also modified the Associations Law and Sports Law, which would allow football clubs to become private sports corporations.

Legal complaints against the DNU as a whole are still being filed: 500 mayors from all over the country submitted a writ requesting it be declared unconstitutional. Filed on January 2, the court in question has not decided whether or not to lift the recess to address it.   

The DNU is yet to be analyzed and voted on by Congress. The decree was filed in the Senate on Friday afternoon. Now, a bicameral commission of eight deputies and eight senators has 10 working days to analyze it before it reaches the floor of the Senate and the Lower House. The DNU could be completely annulled if the majority of both chambers reject it. If not, it will stay in force.

Interior Minister Guillermo Francos told Radio Mitre on Sunday that he doesn’t find the temporary stay against the labor reform “neither reasonable nor logical” and that “those who fix judicial problems like this are not taking responsibility for Argentina’s current situation.”

“We are in a situation of necessity and urgency, is that not clear?” he said.

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