A group of yerba mate growers managed to stop at the Department of Justice in Misiones the presidential decree that removed key functions from the National Yerba Mate Institute, including the setting of reference values for the raw material twice a year . It only took 24 hours for the civil and commercial judge Adriana Fiori to issue the sentence suspends the process of deregulation of the herbal market that the National Government intended to impose through a decree of necessity and urgency (DNU).
There were 20 producers, grouped in eight associations, who presented an appeal for protection to the ordinary judge on Thursday. With the patronage of the lawyer Luis Oudín, they did not hesitate to define the presidential decree as ““a real institutional scam” and questioned its lack of parliamentary control.
Specifically, with regards to herbal activities, they argue that the entry into force of the decree states “the right to health of thousands of producers is at certain and imminent risk herbalists and their families, as beneficiaries of the Global Health Coverage Agreement” signed in April last year between the Misiones government and the INYM.
They argued that by moving collection from the INYM into the orbit of the nation state, “imminent emptying or defunding and therefore the impossibility of having its own resources to fulfill its legal and conventional obligationsincluding to provide the necessary funds or resources for the implementation of the comprehensive health coverage scheme implemented through the agreement.”
This agreement provides that the Institute must contribute 50 percent of the sums necessary to guarantee small producers health coverage from the Social Security Institute of the Province. In this way, they argued, “thousands of small herbal producers and their families could see their right to health undermined, compromised, altered and frustrated,” causing “irreparable harm.”
The agreement already benefits more than 3,200 herbalists from the municipalities of Ruiz de Montoya, Jardín América, Dos de Mayo, Leandro N. Alem, San José, Oberá, Eldorado, Montecarlo, Andresito, Campo Ramón, Gobernador Roca and Campo Grande, among others . others.
The judge argued in the resolution that “without ignoring that the subject complained of is the national State, I cannot ignore that the plaintiffs’ petition includes a request for a precautionary measure based on the right to health of a vulnerable segment of the population.”.
Fiori explained that the agreement provides primary healthcare but also very complex healthcare for herbal producers who have up to 5 hectares. “It is undeniable that the small herbal producer and his families, beneficiaries of the aforementioned agreement, constitute the most vulnerable segment of the entire production chain, and that in the current socioeconomic context, the request to guarantee a fundamental right such as that to global assistance health, with the urgency that the case imposes,” he said.
In another paragraph, the judge specified that “the appellants’ precautionary request consists in suspending the effects of DNU 70/23 so that The structure, functions and powers of the INYM are not modified or altered in accordance with the legal texts in force before the aforementioned decree., aware that until the requested provision is made, and given the defunding proposed by the repeal of the art. 22 of Law 25,564 (establishing the INYM), there is a certain and imminent risk to the right to health of thousands of small herbal producers and their families”.
“In the present case, it is clear that if the global health coverage of the most vulnerable link in yerba production is 50% funded by the INYM and the effects of the DNU cause the imminent loss of administration of the Institute’s resources, The interruption of this coverage presents itself as a certain and immediate possibility. This would, in fact, mean that beneficiaries would lose the right to access medicines, treatments and other health benefits, in a socio-economic context that leaves the most vulnerable segment of our rural areas exposed to the inability to cover their costs. basic needs, which in many cases will have implications for impossible subsequent repairs, ultimately putting their very lives at risk,” said Fiori.
In another paragraph it stated that “it is public knowledge that the legitimacy of DNU 70/23 is called into question in two collective actions brought before different jurisdictions and before the CSJN, so the degree of verisimilitude required by the rule for sending the precautionary measure was fulfilled, without it being up to the undersigned to analyze the underlying issue”.
After favorably resolving the amparo, Judge Fiori refused to continue to intervene in the case and handed the case over to Federal Justice, as established by Law 26.854.
The legislation indicates that “the precautionary order issued against the national State and its decentralized bodies by an incompetent judge or tribunal will be effective only when it involves accredited socially vulnerable sectors in the process, when a dignified life is compromised under the American Convention of Human rights, health rights or a food right. It will also be effective when it involves an environmental right. In this case, once the measure has been ordered, the judge must immediately refer the proceedings to the judge he deems competent, who, once the assigned jurisdiction has been accepted, must rule ex officio on the scope and validity of the precautionary measure. granted, within a period not exceeding five days”.
A few days ago, the federal judge of Oberá, Alejandro Gallandat Luzuriaga, rejected a protection appeal requested by the Misiones government. The magistrate argued that the case should be resolved directly by the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice. The Government has appealed against this ruling, which will now have to be examined by the Federal Chamber of Posadas.
Source: Clarin
