The day Manuel García-Mansilla said he would not accept an appointment by decree to the Supreme Court

Few public figures can resist being archived. In the case of Manuel García-Mansilla , who was appointed on commission by Javier Milei as a minister of the Supreme Court alongside the controversial Ariel Lijo, it will be decided in the next few hours whether he honours his words. It happens that, months ago , the professor had stated that he would not accept an appointment under those terms to occupy a seat on the highest court.

García-Mansilla spoke at length about the issue during his presentation in the Senate on August 28 , when he appeared before the Agreements Committee to be questioned by legislators regarding the treatment of his list of candidates, before the Government decided, in the absence of an opinion, to advance the nominations by decree.

On that occasion, the ultra-Kirchnerist senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti questioned him on the matter. "Would you have accepted being appointed by President Milei as a minister of the Supreme Court?" the representative from Mendoza asked him.

García-Mansilla formulated his response taking into account the immediate precedent of two ministers of the Court appointed on commission during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, Carlos Rosenkrantz and Horacio Rosatti. On that occasion , the opposition had come out to harshly criticize the then president for having appealed to this tool instead of sending the corresponding documents to be approved by the Senate.

"As I explained to you, you saw the impact that decree 83/2015 had on public opinion, I would not have accepted a nomination in commission," García-Mansilla responded last August.

The jurist elaborated on the reasons. "Because beyond the fact that the Constitution provides for it, there is clearly a large sector of the population that, with good reasons, resists these types of decisions that are discretionary to the president," he reflected.

García-Mansilla recalled that in 2015, as soon as Macri's decision became known, he published an article - which can be consulted in Clarín - in which he argued that it was "simply to make a contribution to the debate." In that text, he stated about the measure adopted by Macri: "Although it is true that this measure can be criticized from a political perspective (for example, it could be argued that it was better to wait until the beginning of the ordinary sessions in 2016 or that it was preferable to call extraordinary sessions), the same does not occur from the constitutional point of view: it is an unobjectionable decision ."

But last August, when he had to defend his nomination before the senators, he revealed a change of heart nine years later . "Given the impact that (Macri's decision to nominate by decree) had, I would not have accepted that nomination," he admitted six months ago before the senators.

García-Mansilla stressed that while there are “powers that the constitutional powers have that, when exercised, despite being constitutional, can affect an institution ,” there are also “certain measures that are constitutional, but that depending on the context in which they are taken, can have an impact.”

"That is why the answer is that I would not accept a commission appointment with El Diario del Monday ," he clarified.