Trial of the Juntas

The Trial of the Juntas (Spanish, Juicio a las Juntas) was the judicial trial of the members of the de facto military government that ruled Argentina during the dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (el proceso), which lasted from 1976 to 1983.

The trial took place in 1985 and is so far the only example of such a large scale procedure by a democratic government against a former dictatorial government of the same country in Latin America.

Those on trial were:

The Trial of the Juntas began on 22 April 1985, during the presidential administration of Raúl Alfonsín, the first elected government after the restoration of democracy in 1983. The main prosecutors were Julio César Strassera and his assistant Luis Moreno Ocampo. The trial was presided over by a tribunal of six judges: León Arslanián, Jorge Torlasco, Ricardo Gil Lavedra, Andrés D'Alessio, Jorge Valerga Aráoz, and Guillermo Ledesma.

The dictatorship was a series of several military governments under four military juntas. The fourth junta, before calling for elections and relinquishing power to the democratic authorities, enacted a Self-Amnesty Law on April 18, 1983, as well as a secret decree that ordered the destruction of records and other evidence of their past crimes.

Three days after his inauguration, on 13 December 1983), President Alfonsín signed Decree No. 158, which mandated the initiation of legal proceedings against the nine military officers of the first three juntas, but not the fourth (ruled by General Reynaldo Bignone). The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons was established two days later to collect testimonies from thousands of witnesses, and presented 8,960 cases of to the president on 20 September 1984. Following the refusal of a military court to try former junta members, Alfonsín established a National Criminal Court of Appeals for the purpose on 14 October. In addition to trying military officers, the government prosecuted those leading members of the Montoneros and ERP guerrilla groups responsible of crimes. Numerous men were convicted and sentenced.

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