Argentine President Javier Milei nominated a Buenos Aires federal judge and the dean of a law school as Supreme Court justices.

As per a 2006 law, the top court should be made up of five justices but has had four since Judge Elena Highton de Nolasco resigned in October 2021. Then-President Alberto Fernández could not secure the necessary political support to name her replacement, with two-thirds of the Senate needed to back any appointment.

Milei proposed Federal Judge Ariel Lijo to replace Highton de Nolasco, and the dean of the Austral University’s law school, Manuel García-Mansilla, to fill Juan Carlos Maqueda’s spot. Maqueda, who has served as a justice since 2002, will turn 75 on December 29, the constitutional age limit for Supreme Court judges. The limit, however, has not always been respected. Carlos Fayt famously served in the Supreme Court until December 2015, when he was 97 years old.

García-Mansilla has a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center, is a partner in the Liendo & Associates law firm, and serves as executive director of Argentina’s Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production Chamber. He gained visibility when, during the 2019 congressional debate for the legalization of abortion, he opposed it at the commission stage.

“The alleged right to abortion does not exist, it is not recognized in any of our current norms, nor does it derive from a reasonable interpretation of them,” he said during his presentation. Milei also opposes abortion, calling it an “aggravated homicide.”

Milei’s other candidate, Ariel Lijo, has been a federal judge for 20 years. He was the presiding judge for a case related to the 1994 AMIA bombing, eventually sending former President Carlos Menem to oral trial. In 2014, he indicted former Vice President Amado Boudou in a corruption probe. Boudou, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s VP at the time, was condemned to five years and ten months of imprisonment. He was also the judge in the high-profile Correo Argentino corruption case against former President Mauricio Macri.

Last year, National Deputy Juan Manuel López filed a request for impeachment against Lijo for delaying without reason and with “manifest arbitrariness” the resolution of cases.

The official communiqué nominating Lijo and García Mansilla reiterated the government’s claim that Argentina should go back to the principles of Juan Bautista Alberdi’s original 1853 Constitution, as they “made our country great.” The country, the press release said, needs a judiciary system that “defends strictly and honorably the values of Argentines’ life, freedom, and property.”

If Milei’s candidates are named, the Court would be made up of five men. Vilma Ibarra, who served as the Legal and Technical Secretary under Alberto Fernández’s administration, criticized Milei’s nominations.

“He is unaware of gender inequality. He has insulted women, demeaned and harassed them,” she said in a post on X. “Now he intends to consolidate an all-male Supreme Court. Our president does not want women with power. He wants power over women.”

“God bless Argentines and may the Forces of Heaven be with us,” the communiqué ended.