## Facts

- Julio Héctor Simón, a former Argentine Federal Police officer assigned to a dictatorship-era task force, was accused of illegal deprivation of liberty, torture, and related crimes committed through a clandestine detention system.
- In November 1978, José Liborio Poblete Roa, Gertrudis Marta Hlaczik, and their infant daughter were abducted and taken to the clandestine detention center known as “El Olimpo.”
- The parents were tortured and later disappeared; the infant was unlawfully taken, given a false identity, and registered as the child of others.
- A family complaint triggered a criminal investigation that linked the abductions and detention to the “El Olimpo” task force and to Simón and other officials.
- Lower courts upheld Simón’s indictment and preventive detention for illegal deprivation of liberty in conjunction with aggravated torture, treating the conduct as part of a systematic attack on civilians.
- Simón invoked Argentina’s dictatorship-era “amnesty” laws (Law 23.492 and Law 23.521) and related impunity measures as bars to prosecution and sought extraordinary review.
- After the intermediate court rejected further review, Simón sought relief directly from the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether Laws 23.492 (“Punto Final”) and 23.521 (“Obediencia Debida”) could constitutionally bar investigation and punishment for grave human-rights violations committed during the dictatorship.
2. Whether international human-rights obligations—given constitutional hierarchy in Argentina—required domestic courts to deny effect to amnesties and similar measures that prevent accountability for crimes against humanity.
3. Whether continuing the prosecution after nullifying amnesty barriers violated legality and non-retroactivity principles.
4. Whether the charged acts qualified as crimes against humanity and/or continuing offenses such that statutes of limitation and other extinction doctrines were unavailable.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court denied Simón’s petition and affirmed the lower-court rulings permitting the prosecution to proceed.
- The Court declared Laws 23.492 and 23.521 unconstitutional and void to the extent they blocked investigation and punishment of serious human-rights violations.
- The Court held that systematic illegal detention, torture, and enforced disappearance during the dictatorship constituted crimes against humanity not subject to amnesty, pardon, or statutory limitation.
- The Court rejected defenses based on legality and retroactivity, concluding that prosecution applied existing criminal prohibitions and removed invalid impediments rather than creating new offenses.

## Legal Principles

- Domestic measures that prevent investigation and punishment of gross human-rights violations are invalid where they conflict with constitutionalized human-rights treaty obligations to investigate, prosecute, and punish.
- Human-rights treaties with constitutional rank must be interpreted consistently with international law, including authoritative regional human-rights jurisprudence addressing impunity measures.
- Crimes against humanity are not amenable to amnesty or pardon and are not extinguished by statutes of limitation.
- Enforced disappearance may be treated as a continuing offense while the victim’s fate remains unknown, further negating limitations defenses.
- Nullifying impunity laws does not violate non-retroactivity where the underlying conduct was criminal at the time and the judicial action merely removes unconstitutional obstacles to prosecution.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the criminal case against Simón and others to continue by holding that dictatorship-era amnesty laws lacked constitutional validity when used to block accountability for crimes against humanity, which are neither amnestiable nor subject to prescription, and that proceeding with prosecution did not offend legality or non-retroactivity principles.


Simón (Julio Héctor) (Arg. Sup. Ct. June 14, 2005)