A minor, who at the time of committing the crimes was 16 years old, was today declared the perpetrator and criminally responsible for carrying out obscene exhibitions and sexual abuse, to the detriment of a seven-year-old girl. The sentence of the Santa Rosa hearing judge, Alejandra Ongaro, was the first to be handed down under the new Criminal Procedure for Adolescents.
The facts proven during the debate, which lasted two days, occurred in a room in the girl’s house. There the accused – who is currently 18 years old – sexually assaulted her.
Ongaro ended up declaring authorship and criminal responsibility for the crimes of obscene exhibitions, in real competition with sexual abuse with anal carnal access to a minor under 13 years of age, through the introduction of a part of the body (finger); framing the facts in laws 26485 and 26061 on Comprehensive Protection against Women and Comprehensive Protection of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents, respectively.
That qualification was what the prosecutor Cristian Alejandro Ramón Casais and the attorney for the private complaint, the lawyer María Lis Rizzo, had requested, representing the girl’s mother. The official defender, María Silvina Blanco Gómez, on the other hand, argued for the teenager’s acquittal, understanding that the benefit of the doubt should be applied since she considered that the evidence had been insufficient to have absolute certainty of the authorship.
The judge also accepted two precautionary and socio-educational measures required by the Public Prosecutor’s Office: that the accused continue with the psychological treatment he has been undergoing and also with secondary studies, for at least one year.
These measures, according to article 20 of the new norm, will be monitored by the General Directorate of Children, Adolescence and Family – dependent on the Ministry of Social Development –, as the enforcement authority, as ordered by Ongaro. That body will not only have to carry out this monitoring, but will also have to produce monthly reports.
During the debate, the mother of the accused, the mother and stepfather of the victim, the girl’s psychologist and the aggressor’s psychologist, two forensic psychologists, a forensic doctor and a member of the religious community to which both families belong testified. The latter’s story was also heard in the Gesell Chamber and documentary evidence was added.
Judge Ongaro accepted the precautionary measures considering that through them “the protection of the rights of adolescents is comprehensively guaranteed; in light of the legal principle of the best interest of girls, boys and adolescents, incorporated into our legal system through different international instruments.”
“Such measures, which are reasonable, appropriate and proportional, will have the purpose of maintaining the family and community ties of the accused; and they will be set within a specific period, which can only be extended or re-examined at the request of the parties,” he said. Even this decision had the approval of the complaint and the defense, since they did not raise any objections.
Provincial law 3353 (new Criminal Procedure for Adolescents) has been in force since August of last year and is intended for adolescents aged 16 and 17 in conflict with criminal law. It – as a general principle – emphasizes the restorative justice system, where the damage to the victims (individuals, neighborhoods or communities) is prioritized, and the commitment of the perpetrator to repair it through consensual and participatory forms. In addition, it provides for preventive detention as a last option, after the adolescent does not previously comply with a series of obligations established by a judge.
