Zaffaroni says current Penal Code 'incoherent,' calls for reform

The head of the Argentine Supreme Court, Justice Eugenio Zaffaroni, suggested that there’s a need to reform the Penal Code, since due to the several amendments applied to it in the last few decades, “it has been rendered into a completely incoherent text.”

“The Penal Code doesn’t exist today,” Zaffaroni added, but warned that in case of an eventual reform “all political parties should take part in the process.” 

According to the Supreme Court judge, “the old text from 1921 was respectable,” but he now thinks that through the years “it was gutted with partial reforms added by dictatorships and counter-reforms pursued by constitutional Governments.”

“In the last 30 years of democracy it has suffered many amendments, most of them unfortunate, and that’s why I believe he have a text that is completely incoherent,” he stated. 

Zaffaroni’s statements calling for a Penal Code reform come in a time when Congress is close to begin debating an amendment to the Civil Code.

“The only way for this reform to work is if a committee is created so it can work based on previous bills, but it must have a plural political representation,” he assured.