Global IssuesArgentine Province a Bastion of Opposition to Gender Quotas
Argentina was the first country in the world to adopt a national gender quota law to boost women's political participation. But nearly 20 years later, the legislation that inspired the rest of Latin America continues to run into resistance in one province.
That province is Jujuy in the northwest, on the border with Chile and Bolivia, considered a bastion of machismo and conservatism by women's movements and social organisations.
'Jujuy is a province where the power structures are virtually feudal, where conservative strongmen rule,' María Inés Zigarán, a professor of journalism and member of the provincial women's movement, told IPS.
'And it isn't by chance that we don't have a provincial gender quota law. This province is hostile towards the new rights that were incorporated in the constitution when it was amended in 1994, and stands in the way of their implementation and enforcement,' she added, referring to the rights of women and indigenous people.
Argentina's quota law stipulates that at least 30 percent of candidates on electoral lists must be women. When it was passed by Congress in 1991, only five percent of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and four percent in the Senate were held by women. Today, those proportions have risen to 38 and 36 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, similar laws were gradually approved in the federal district and 22 of the country's 23 provinces. The only exception is Jujuy.
But resistance to quotas in the province is starting to show cracks, and this month the issue brought the Jujuy legislature and judiciary to loggerheads.
In 2009, a group of women filed an injunction in the provincial courts to force the provincial legislature to adopt a quota law.
In May, the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo, an administrative court in Jujuy, admitted the injunction and ordered the provincial executive and legislative branches 'to comply with the mandate' expressed in article 37 of the constitution.
The three-judge administrative court panel ordered the legislature to pass a quota law within the next three months, or face unspecified sanctions.
Article 37 establishes that 'the real equality of opportunities for men and women to access to elected and party posts will be guaranteed by positive actions in regulation of political parties and the electoral system.'
The Jujuy provincial prosecutor, Alberto Matuk, and a group of lawmakers reacted angrily. 'The judges overstepped their authority, and we are going to appeal the ruling to the (provincial) High Court,' he told IPS.
'They can't order us to pass a law that sets a 50 percent quota,' said Matuk, whose position is designated by the governor in Argentina's provinces.
The ruling, however, does not actually mention percentages, but merely requires compliance with the constitutional article that calls for 'positive actions' in favour of gender equity.
Matuk defended the provincial legislature's resistance to establishing quotas, pointing out that 15 of the 48 seats -- more than 30 percent -- are already held by women.
But he said this year 'the quota law will be discussed,' although parliament has said nothing to that respect.
Above and beyond the current proportion of female lawmakers, women want a law that would guarantee their participation and that would be applicable in all of Jujuy's 16 departments and 61 municipalities. 'There is not a single woman sitting on the town council in 34 of the 39 councils in the north (of the province),' Alicia Chabale told IPS.
Chabale, a lawyer for the group that filed the injunction, says Jujuy is a 'totally machista' province where women who participate in politics are described as 'feisty' by male political leaders.
'They hold the power here, especially the governing Justicialista (Peronist) Party, which has a small clique of three leaders who decide how the posts are to be divvied up. And of course, they have commitments to a lot of people,' she said.
The provincial legislature, dominated by the Justicialista Party, went further than simply rejecting the ruling. On Jun. 8, 12 lawmakers called for the three administrative panel judges to be impeached 'for actions incompatible with their functions.'
The governing party legislators, as well as the office of the prosecutor, said the judges were trampling the legislature by ordering it to pass a law under the threat of sanctions.
But when the judges were threatened with impeachment, pressure began to be applied from the rest of the country, and as a result it will be difficult for the Jujuy parliament to impeach them for a ruling that the lawmakers disagree with rather than for improper personal conduct.
Five prominent non-governmental organisations, including the Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género (ELA — Latin American Justice and Gender Group), issued a statement against the impeachment initiative, and dozens of public figures and associations of judges and lawyers have joined their voices to the protest.
The statement says the political powers-that-be are trying to 'steamroller the judiciary' for ruling that the legislature comply with the constitution.
'This is an extremely serious problem because above and beyond the content of the sentence, if parliament doesn't agree, it should appeal, not persecute the judges,' Natalia Gherardi, executive director of ELA, which has provided legal advice to the organisations that filed the injunction in Jujuy, told IPS.
'It is one thing to turn to the High Court, and another very different thing to threaten judges with impeachment because the legislature doesn't agree with a ruling,' she said.
Professor Zigarán said the clash between the legislature and the courts shows the provincial lawmakers' narrow-minded opposition to the quota system. 'For 19 years we have been demanding this, and bills are introduced every year, but they are always shelved,' she said.
Jujuy, one of the poorest provinces in the country, has some of the highest maternal mortality rates caused by back-alley abortions (abortion is illegal in Argentina) and sex crime rates.
Zigarán said the administrative court that issued the ruling has a tradition of taking independent, progressive stances. 'The impeachment threat is aimed at teaching the judges a lesson, domesticating them so they will never again hand down an independent ruling,' she said.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service