The recent ruling by the Argentine Supreme Court, which once again paved the way for the repeal of limits on foreign land ownership, sparked a major political debate in the country. The Milei administration had attempted to repeal the Land Law through various means, but in 2026, popular mobilization defeated the effort. Now, three Supreme Court justices—who were not elected by popular vote—are once again using judicial channels to enable what the government failed to impose. The case raises questions about who elects the judiciary, who controls it, and whose interests it serves. We aim to contribute to this discussion by proposing a different, anti-capitalist, and socialist alternative.
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By Oda Cuentas
Supreme Breed
Tuesday, September 29. While Argentina watched as Milei turned Paris into a showcase for the national auction, Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti—the three justices of the Argentine Supreme Court—overturned the ruling that had blocked the repeal of the Land Law. This law, enacted in 2011, established a series of limits on foreign ownership of a strategic resource such as land. It set a maximum of 15% of rural land in foreign hands at the national, provincial, and departmental levels, stipulated that individuals or companies of the same nationality could not exceed 30% of that quota, and limited a single foreign owner to 1,000 hectares in the so-called agricultural “core zone” (or its equivalent area in other regions). It also established restrictions on lands that contain or border major, permanent bodies of water. In a country with a vast territory, significant freshwater reserves, agricultural land, mineral resources, and more, rolling back this measure is tantamount to reopening the door to the auctioning off of Argentine territory to the highest bidder.
The judges focused on a procedural issue, ruling that the La Plata Center for Falkland Islands Veterans (CECIM) lacked standing to file that class-action lawsuit: It is paradoxical that an organization composed of those who fought in the Falklands War should be considered legally unrelated to a dispute in which it invokes, precisely, the defense of territorial sovereignty.
Milei attempted to repeal the Land Law as soon as he took office, through Emergency Decree No. 70/23. The injunction filed by CECIM and the subsequent appellate court ruling halted that repeal. Later, in 2026, the government revisited the same goal through Congress with the “Inviolability of Private Property” bill, which included amendments to ease restrictions on land purchases by foreigners. Public backlash was immediate. Massive protests across the country forced the ruling party to withdraw that section before the Senate vote. The banner reading “The Malvinas are Argentine, ” unfurled by the Argentine national team players before their match against England—a game steeped in history and symbolism—helped spread the sentiment of defending sovereignty and bolstered public support for the claim. And what the government failed to impose in that political arena is now resurfacing in the courts.
A social majority spoke out, mobilized, and succeeded in halting that advance. It was not a discussion among experts, nor was it merely a parliamentary debate, nor was it something that some outdated opportunist tried to exploit for personal gain through supposed behind-the-scenes influence[1]: thousands took to the streets across the country to defend the fundamental principle that land and sovereignty must be defended. Ahead lies, then, a new agenda of struggle in Argentina over the coming weeks—weeks that will be decisive for victory and for making further progress.
This ruling also exposes a relationship of mutual favors between the political and judicial branches: while Milei upholds the privileges of a judiciary that operates increasingly beyond any popular oversight, the Supreme Court justices clear the way for him to move forward with his agenda of handing over territory. What the protests managed to halt in August—forcing the government to remove the chapter on foreign ownership from the Law on the Inviolability of Private Property—they are now seeking to push forward through the courts.
This raises a contradiction that is difficult to avoid: a social majority mobilized against the transfer of the lands and succeeded in forcing the government to back down. But now three judges whom no one directly elected can, with a single ruling, reinstate what the popular mobilization had managed to stop. So the discussion is no longer just about the Land Law. Why can three people whom no one directly elected make decisions of such far-reaching consequences?
Castle
The Supreme Court seems to have something of that Kafkaesque castle about it: a power elevated above society, inaccessible to those below, governed by rules and procedures that few understand, and inhabited by judges whom no one elected—yet whose decisions affect everyone’s lives.
The Argentine Constitution establishes a Judiciary that is formally separate from the Executive and Legislative branches. But this supposed “institutional independence” is far from meaning the absence of political interference in its composition and operation. The idea of an independent judiciary has its roots in the doctrine of the separation of powers developed by Montesquieu, which influenced liberal political thought and the constitutionalism that emerged from the bourgeois revolutions, including the French Revolution. According to this conception, the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches would allow for the establishment of a system of mutual checks and balances capable of guaranteeing “institutional balance” and preventing the concentration of power. However, at this stage, such “neutrality” is an ideological fiction that obscures the class character of the state and its institutions. Far from functioning as “autonomous branches,” their powers overlap, and their decisions are shaped by power dynamics and concrete political disputes.
In Argentina, the appointments of judges and prosecutors involve the Judicial Council, the Executive Branch, and the Senate. In the case of the Supreme Court, appointments depend directly on the president’s nomination and the approval of a supermajority in the Senate. The political establishment appoints or removes them as it sees fit or as its interests dictate. And once in office, they are exceptionally protected from public oversight. National judges retain their positions as long as they maintain “good conduct”; the public cannot revoke their terms, and their removal requires complex institutional procedures. For lower-level judges, the Judicial Council must intervene, followed by an Impeachment Jury. Members of the Supreme Court can only be removed through impeachment. There is, therefore, neither a popular mandate nor periodic accountability: they can serve through entire administrations, exercising enormous power without ever once facing the consequences of an assessment of their rulings.
Added to this are further privileges. The official pay scale of the Judicial Council sets the base salary for a Supreme Court justice at more than 11 million pesos per month. This figure falls far short of all the additional compensation they receive, which, according to reports, amounts to nearly 20 million pesos per month. They also enjoy a tax privilege: judges, officials, and judicial employees appointed before 2017 do not pay income tax—even though their salaries are equivalent to 15 times the minimum wage. Unbelievable.
The appointment process, the lack of public oversight, lengthy terms, and privileged salaries are all part of a judicial structure designed to keep those who make these decisions at a distance from the public. It is not enough to debate who should serve on the Court or to hope that the next administration will appoint “better” judges . We must address a deeper question: how to begin dismantling this judicial branch and move toward a truly democratic one, as we on the left propose.
Another Kind of Justice Is Possible: Dismantle, Remove, Elect, Oversee, and Recall
The recent ruling by the Argentine Supreme Court on the Land Law is just one example of a much broader phenomenon affecting capitalist democracies in Latin America and around the world. The judiciary has been playing an increasingly important role as a safety net and guardian of the interests of the ruling classes. Faced with the growing discredit of the traditional bourgeois parties and the crisis of legitimacy affecting their institutions, the various factions of economic and political power are increasingly turning to the courts to settle their disputes, preserve their privileges, and impose through legal channels what they cannot achieve through the usual mechanisms of political representation. There are plenty of examples in our region. Far from being a neutral branch of government independent of social conflicts, the judiciary intervenes in decisions of profound political significance, while its ties to the governments in power, its involvement in corruption cases, and its cover-up maneuvers contribute to deepening its own loss of credibility.
In light of this situation, we on the revolutionary left advocate for popular mobilization as a fundamental method to confront these decisions and expose the political and class-based nature of the judiciary. To that end, we propose, as an emergency measure, in response to acts of corruption, repression, or cover-ups, the establishment of Independent Investigative Commissions to examine the government, the judicial system, and the economic sectors involved, with the direct participation of representatives from workers’ organizations, human rights groups, social organizations, and prominent figures of recognized standing and integrity. The aim is to promote mechanisms for investigation, oversight, and social control—endowed with popular legitimacy and credibility—that are capable of clarifying responsibilities, revealing complicity and privileges, making their findings public, and ensuring that appropriate sanctions are imposed.
The Argentine experience with CONADEP—established after the last military dictatorship to investigate the forced disappearance of persons and related crimes—serves as a precedent that, with its strengths and limitations, helps us understand the importance of establishing socially recognized investigative mechanisms in the face of deeply discredited institutions. The aim is not to mechanically replicate that experience, but rather to reclaim a fundamental principle: the investigation of events that implicate the state itself cannot be left exclusively in the hands of the very institutions whose actions are being questioned. From this perspective, independent investigative commissions serve as a tool for popular intervention and oversight, enabling the questioning of the judiciary’s purported neutrality and paving the way for the direct participation of workers and popular sectors in decisions and matters that are typically reserved for judges, government officials, and representatives of economic power.
This proposal is part of a broader transitional approach. If the assessment is that the problem with the judiciary is not limited to a few corrupt judges or a particular composition of the Supreme Court, then the solution cannot be limited to simply replacing some names with others. We must fundamentally question the mechanisms through which individuals gain access to the judiciary, remain in it, and exercise authority that is virtually beyond popular control.
Dismantle the current judicial structure: remove judges and prosecutors and end lifetime appointments. The first step toward fundamentally transforming the justice system is to dismantle its current power structure. We must put an end to a system of appointments that has allowed for the consolidation of a virtually immovable judicial establishment, whose members can remain in their positions for decades without being held accountable to the public. This would involve removing the current judges and prosecutors, vacating their positions, and ending the system of indefinite tenure that currently protects them. No public official should automatically retain a position of power simply because they were appointed through political deals made behind the public’s back.
Elect judges and prosecutors by popular vote. All judges and prosecutors must be directly elected by the people through the ballot box. Those who exercise judicial functions must derive their legitimacy from a democratic election, not from negotiations between the President, the Senate, the Judicial Council, and sectors of the economic elite. Today, workers and the general public have no direct say in their selection, because what is presented as a judiciary independent of politics has, from its very inception, depended on decisions made by representatives of the establishment. Popular election would make it possible to break this monopoly and establish a basic democratic principle: those who exercise power over society must be accountable to it.
Some might say, “People can make mistakes.” But the current system doesn’t offer a selection process carried out by infallible beings either. Judges are chosen through the infamous political patronage system, and far from “making mistakes,” they act in their own self-interest and/or in the interest of the economic powers to which they are beholden. The question is: Who has the right to decide, and what mechanisms exist to overturn decisions that go against the will of the people?
Fixed terms and recallable offices. Electing judges and prosecutors but not changing the conditions under which they serve would be insufficient. Therefore, their terms must be fixed-term and include mechanisms for recall by the people in the event of poor performance—exactly the opposite of the current situation, in which they become virtually irremovable officials for decades. If a judge fails to fulfill their duties, commits serious misconduct, or engages in egregious actions that compromise their accountability, there must be a possibility of terminating their term early through public proceedings and with due process guarantees. The right to elect must be accompanied by the right to remove. This is something that millions of people in Argentina today eagerly await.
With judicial elections held separately from political elections. There is an additional problem that must be avoided: judges ending up as mere candidates of the major party machines. For this reason, judicial elections should be held on a different date than executive and legislative elections. To allow the debate to focus specifically on the judiciary: on each candidate’s background, career, financial assets, previous rulings, and political or economic ties to those in power. Mechanisms for public and equitable campaign financing must also be guaranteed, so that money does not determine who can run. The goal would not be to choose a judicial slate hidden beneath a presidential candidacy, but rather to open a specific public discussion about who administers the judiciary and whose interests they serve.
Social and economic oversight. Public accountability. Electing judges and prosecutors would not be enough if they are then able to carry out their duties without any oversight by the public. There must be permanent mechanisms for public oversight of the performance of judges and the financial operations of the judiciary. All judges and prosecutors must be publicly accountable for their actions and decisions.
A judge should earn as much as a school principal. Democratizing the justice system would also mean questioning the material structure surrounding those who administer it. Because those who rule on labor disputes, evictions, institutional violence, or social rights should not belong to a caste that is materially separated from the majority of the population. The common argument is that salaries are “extraordinarily high” because they are necessary to “guarantee independence.” But that explanation assumes that a public official’s independence depends on distancing their living conditions from those of the people over whom they rule. This is incomprehensible. Serving in public office does not have to be a pathway to privilege. A judge or prosecutor must have decent working conditions to perform their duties, but they do not need to become part of a privileged class in order to be independent. This also means putting an end to the pension, tax, and economic privileges enjoyed by high-ranking judicial officials.
Jury trials. The popular election of judges must be complemented by much greater direct participation by the public through the expansion of jury trials. The assessment of certain facts can be entrusted to citizens summoned for that purpose. It is not merely a matter of electing those who permanently administer justice, but also of participating directly in the judicial process when it comes to resolving specific cases. It is another way to break the monopoly of a professional body that seeks to reserve all judicial decisions for itself.
Gender perspective. Incorporate the direct participation of women’s and diversity organizations in guardianship advisory bodies and other agencies involved in the protection of rights, along with the popular election of judges and greater social involvement through juries. This would ensure that the gender perspective does not depend exclusively on what a public official learned in a one-time training course—as is currently the case—but rather that there is institutional involvement from sectors and organizations with concrete experience in combating gender-based violence and inequalities.
The popular election of judges and prosecutors, the ability to recall them from office, the elimination of their privileges, and the expansion of mechanisms for direct participation and oversight are democratic demands. However, we do not view these reforms as an end in themselves, nor do we see them as a way to transform the capitalist state into a neutral arbiter through a few procedural changes. The strategic perspective is to move toward a model of justice radically different from that of bourgeois democracies, one grounded in forms of power and decision-making by workers and the popular sectors. For as long as capitalist relations of ownership and exploitation persist, the law and the institutions charged with enforcing it will continue to be permeated by the material inequalities and relations of domination that structure society.
Go all out
Transitional measures are essential for democratizing a judiciary that is structurally linked to political and economic power and to the ruling classes. But no institutional reform, however far-reaching, has the capacity to transform the nature of the justice system on its own as long as the social relations upon which it is built remain intact. The law does not exist above society, nor is it a neutral sphere: it is historically shaped by a specific economic structure, permeated by property relations, class antagonisms, and power struggles. Nor are the state and its institutions arbiters external to these conflicts, because law and justice cannot be understood independently of the economic relations and class struggle that permeate society.
Marx and Engels put it forcefully in the Communist Manifesto: “Your very ideas are a product of bourgeois relations of production and property, just as your law is nothing more than the will of your class elevated to the status of law; a will whose content is determined by the material conditions of your class’s existence.”
That is why our proposal cannot be limited to replacing judges or modifying the mechanism by which they are appointed. The popular election of judges and prosecutors, limited and revocable terms, trials by jury, the elimination of privileges, and much greater direct involvement of workers and social organizations raise the question of who decides, who controls, and in the hands of which class power lies. These are transitional measures precisely because they stem from immediate democratic needs (putting an end to an immovable, privileged judicial caste that is beyond popular control), but they will necessarily come up against the limits of institutions built to separate the majority from fundamental decisions. We want to elect, control, and recall officials today because that experience can bring into question something even deeper: why those who produce wealth and sustain society on a daily basis should not also be able to decide on its organization and governance.
Radically democratizing the justice system is not, in and of itself, an end in itself, but rather part of a broader struggle to transform the power relations that permeate all of society. As long as private ownership of the major means of production, the concentration of wealth, and the division of society into classes with conflicting interests persist, the material foundations for the law and state institutions to reproduce these inequalities will also exist. It would not be enough, then, to democratize the political and legal superstructure if the social structure that repeatedly reproduces class domination remains intact.
That is why, if we take this to its logical conclusion, the discussion about justice inevitably leads to a discussion about the state, property, and power. A truly new justice requires a new society: transforming the social relations that produce this law, this state, and these inequalities. So, it is not merely a matter of opening the doors of the old Kafkaesque castle so that the majority can enter, but of questioning the social relations that made that castle necessary and that concentrate in a minority the right to rule over the rest.
A socialist vision precisely calls for this fundamental transformation: that workers cease to be merely those who produce and sustain society and instead become those who democratically determine its course. Moving toward power organized from below, based on the participation and direct control of the working majority, and toward a society free of exploitation and antagonistic classes. Because emancipating the justice system from the interests of a minority ultimately means emancipating society from the material relations that make the domination of that minority possible.
[1] An opportunistic campaign by a faction of the PJ attempted to attribute the removal of the chapters on land expropriation to Sergio Massa https://www.eldestapeweb.com/politica/misterioso-mensaje-adjudican-massa-derrota-gobierno-congreso-202687122518
[2] https://eltribuna.com.ar/contenido/7052/los-jueces-de-la-corte-suprema-se-subieron-el-sueldo-ahora-cobran-19000000
