Ricardo Lorenzetti, the head of the Supreme Court of Justice, presented a draft bill to reform the Civil and Commercial Code to the executive branch on Tuesday.
The initiative includes far-reaching reforms and a simplification of the current divorce procedure, prenuptial agreements, artificial insemination and surrogacy. It was made official at the Bicentennial Museum before members of the cabinet, opposition leaders and members of the court.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will send the bill to Congress within 30 days for their approval. Carlos Zannini, the Casa Rosada’s legal and technical secretary, is entrusted with preparing the final draft. His aim is to secure the approval of both houses by the end of the year.
“This initiative is a qualitative leap,” said the president upon receiving the proposed revisions of encoded social and commercial relations.
“We have to constitutionalise trade relations and civil rights” said the president. “This means giving them freedom and equality, ensuring the freedom and dignity of persons to choose their way of life.”
Fernández de Kirchner urged lawmakers to “abandon their dogmatic positions” when discussing the articles, since “it is necessary to have tools that serve all men and women, whichever God you pray to or even if you have no God”.
Many of the reforms of the new bill will revolve around family law and the protection of children, particularly in relation to adoption and divorce.
In the commercial field, investment will be encouraged by establishing the framework for single member companies. The right to communal property and indigenous peoples are also included in the revised bills.
Lorenzetti explained that the text has been “heavily involved in the Argentine history since it has impacted all the sectors representing Argentine legal doctrine”. The judge added that the test is the “project of a generation of lawyers who have worked for over thirty years,” in the aim of providing “protection of the highest standard”.
Fernández de Kirchner also expressed her willingness to move in the same direction with a reform of the Criminal and Administrative Codes.
“There is no doubt that this means an important advance,” stated the radical candidate, Gil Lavedra, noting that “improving the legality in a country with a weak legal structure is always positive….this must not amount to a discussion of minutiae but a profound discussion.”
Fernández de Kirchner will begin today a ten-day tour in the south of Argentina with the aim of improving her poll ratings which dropped at the end of 2011.
