What place do women occupy in the Río Negro justice system? Is the female quota respected? Do they hold hierarchical positions? Did it increase compared to other years? Page 19 of the voluminous statistical report of the Judicial Branch of Río Negro, which was made public days ago, provides a first figure: 66 percent of public agency positions are held by women. The first objective data is that women practically double the number of men in all judicial areas of the province.
A second piece of information reveals that there are more female positions among judges and secretaries, reaching 55 percent, although as the pyramid rises that figure tends to decrease, especially in the Court of Appeal where there is only one woman among the four positions: Rita Custet, former general defender of the Attorney General’s Office.
The difference is also significant in the chambers, which is the highest rank among district judges. There the female quota is 29 percent. At the top the distribution is more equitable: the STJ is made up of three men: Ricardo Accarian, Sergio Barotto and Sergio Ceci and two women: Cecilia Criado and Liliana Piccinini:60 percent vs 40 percent.
The gap is much wider with the Attorney General’s Office chaired by Jorge Crespo, where the defense office, which has Arial Alice as general defender, and the prosecutor’s office, which has Fabricio Brogna as attorney general, converge. The three most important positions in the Public Ministry depend on men.
The last woman to hold a position in that trident was precisely Custet, who was general defender until she won the contest for the Court of Appeal that opened with the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code in 2017. Something similar happened with Piccinini who has a more hierarchical position. There are three women among the eight highest-ranking positions in Río Negro.
The STJ, more balanced
The STJ is on the verge of parity and the discussion of the women’s quota influenced the last election. The Attorney General’s Office is the most masculinized body, as is the Court of Appeal and the Judicial Council, which is the body that elects and removes officials.
Except for Santa Cruz, the rest of the Patagonian provinces have more men than women in hierarchical positions. The Gender Map of the Argentine Justice system prepared by the Supreme Court shows that women are 57 percent of the total staff of the Argentine justice system and represent 61 percent of its civil service. In the maximum positions his representation is 30 percent.
Río Negro is out of the average in the first instance magistrates, but not at the top. But it is above many provinces, in addition has a specific Gender and Human Rights body with a transversal policy and also publishes its updated data.
One of the promoters of the gender policy was the judge of the Superior Court of Justice, now retired, Adriana Zaratiegui. When her vacancy had to be filled, The discussion arose over the female quota maintained by the current magistrate Cecilia Criado. Together with Liliana Piccinini they make up the women’s block in the STJ.
Piccinini was the Attorney General of the province, who did not open that debate and today it is the most masculinized body: Attorney Jorge Crespo completes the triad with Attorney General Fabricio Brogna and Defender General Ariel Alice. Before Alice, Her successor was Rita Custet, another precursor of the female quota along with Piccinini.
Today Custet is a member of the Court of Appeal, the second most masculinized judicial body after the Attorney General’s Office. She is the only woman among the four members that was created with the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code in 2017. They also integrate it; Miguel Cardella, Carlos Mussi and Adrián Zimmermann.
But the situation is in the Council of the Judiciary, which is the body in charge of appointing and removing magistrates. It is notably male: it is made up of three legislators and the Bar Associations, with exceptions such as Cipolletti, Few women sit down to make decisions.
criminal jurisdiction
In the criminal jurisdiction, the reform of the procedural code opened the door to many women who today are judges, prosecutors and defenders. Even the Judicial Office has two directors and two directors. The Family jurisdiction has a large female majority, except for the only male Family judge: Jorge Benatti, who works at Cipolletti.
The enforcement, civil and labor jurisdictions are distributed. The bar associations justify themselves by saying that there are not many women who practice criminal law, just as there are not many men who dedicate themselves to family law. It is almost a simplistic explanation to justify the disparity. The provinces with the highest population density such as Buenos Aires and Córdoba also has a male majority, except for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
According to the Supreme Court report, although women manage to make a career within the Judiciary until they become the majority of its civil service (61 percent), the so-called “glass ceiling” appears for women when they compete for office. the judiciary and, even more so, to access the highest level of authority.
In this sense, in the period analyzed, as an exercise, it was calculated that male officials had twice the chance of becoming Magistrates, Attorneys, Prosecutors or Defenders, and 3.6 times more likely to integrate the highest authorities than their female counterparts in the Argentine justice system.
Among criminal judges there are more women. This number includes guarantee, trial and criminal execution magistrates: 56 percent. They are also the majority in the Peace Courts: 55 percent.
A clear example is Cipolletti, who until last year had all the Guarantees judges female: Sonia Martín, Agustina Bagniole, Rita Lucia and Amorina Sánchez Merlo who won the contest last November due to the retirement of another judge: Laura González Vitale.
Only at the end of last year did a man join: Juan Puntel, who was transferred from Viedma to respond to the high demand in the district. Among the trial judges there is a majority of men: four against two: Florencia Caruso and Alejandra Berenguer, who was also the first prosecutor at the police station and the first female prosecutor and judge of the district.
The criminal jurisdiction appears as a spearhead in increasing the number of women in first-instance hierarchical positions. This example of Cipolletti is also repeated in the rest of the constituencies and has as its genesis the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code, because before 2017 there were practically no women among judges and prosecutors.
The most significant case is the family jurisdiction, which has 13 female judges and only one judge, Jorge Benatti from Cipol. In addition to the Attorney General’s Office, today the Judicial Council appears as one of the most “masculinized.”
With the new presidency under Sergio Ceci there are almost no women in the inter-power organization. Only representatives of the bar associations. The three legislators are also men. Lucas Pica and Facundo López for the ruling party and Juan Martín for the opposition.
Young people with professional careers
Another significant piece of information from the annual report prepared by the Judicial Branch of Río Negro is the average age and seniority among the 2,665 employees of the public body. The average age among all of them is 44.62 while the trajectory is over 11 years. These numbers explain the judicial career in the province that begins as lower-ranking employees and manages to reach senior positions.
Without going any further, in the Fourth Circumscription, the latest charges were obtained by young people, such as the case of Guillermo Merlo, who went from prosecutor to trial judge at less than 40 years old. The same thing happened at the end of last year with the contest for Guarantees judge that Amorina Sánchez Merlo, who was secretary of the Chamber, won.
He took over the position that was left vacant by the retirement of Laura González Vitale. Another case of a young judge is that of Georgina Amaro Piccinini, daughter of STJ judge Liliana Piccinini, who took the position of judge last year. Guarantees judge in Viedma under 35 years old. Most of the competitions for prosecutors in the Public Prosecutor’s Office were also obtained by people under 40 years of age.
Another case that is over 40 years old, but marks the internal journey, is that of Pablo Zille. He was the youngest Justice of the Peace in Cipolletti and in December 2022 he was appointed as MARC coordinating defender. Zille received several praises from STJ judge Ricardo Accarian who that year presided over the Judicial Council.
He was Inspector of Justice, in fact he was the head of the 49 justices of the peace in the province and is noted as the magistrate who completely changed the face of justice of the peace in the province.
