Yesterday after an early human rights class (by the way, I didn´t learn anything in that class. this day, we talked about the salary of Argentina teachers.), we went into Buenos Aires. Our first stop was a city law firm. All I can say about that is the walls were very blue. Next we headed to a nice Italian restaurant for lunch on the program. Unfortunately, we didn´t realize we did not have to pay for it ourselves until we had already finished our meals. Otherwise I think that wine and deserts would have definitely been on the bill. Oh well, it was tastely either way.
Then it was a brisk walk over to the Supreme Court of Argentina. The building is certainly a much more noteable building as compared to others in the country. But there was no security screening; I am not sure if this is general practice or if we by-passed it due to our special status as law students. We got the general history of the structure: construction started in 1904 and was complated in 1942. I think they said France was where most of the materials came from. However, the area of blocks in France is bigger than here, so they had to resize it to fit into a Buenos Aires´ block. Sort of interesting.
The statute of lady justice was different. She was not blind-folded, nor was there any scale. She was standing with arms outstretched and both palms down - almost like a protective blessing. (I will attach a photo when I hook up to a computer that can handle it.) I liked her.
The chambers were dignified, with chandeliers (sp?), legal books, quality paintings, foreign metals, statutes, flags, Jesus on the cross, and ashtrays. In the actual courtroom, Jesus on the cross again guides the justices by hanging on a banner behind their bench. There are nine chairs on the bench, but I think currently there are only 5 supreme court jsutices. Otherwise there are 7 right now; I am confused on this process and I am also confused due to language translations. I´ll figure it out eventually...
We met the second justice in command - Justice Pettrachi (sp?). He has been on the Court for 25 years now. That is intense because he is the only remaining justice from around the period of the Disappeared in Argentina. (The Disappeared is from the last military ruling, 1976-1983, when a the military just took people away. No one knew where. To this day many still don´t know. They are just gone = disappeared.) He was not a supporter of this military rule, but however it works out at this point, he is generally of a different stance on issues than the rest of the Court. He is typically in the dissent of their opinions. Anyway, they say it is good to have his view on their Supreme Court - a view that is not automatically aligned with the ruling party current controlling gov´nt. It is a step toward the Argentine S.Ct. gaining the status such as the US S.Ct. holds in our gov´ntal make-up.
After that, we sat in traffic, slowing making our way back to La Plata. Then we had a grocery store dinner in the hotel lobby. It was one of the most enjoyable meals here - inexpensive, very relaxed, lots of wine ;) We got a little loud and had a few complaints from other guests, though. Oops.
