A court has mandated that Argentina’s economy ministry provide all documentation pertaining to the nation’s most recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the upcoming Friday. The decision follows the office’s inability to disclose information regarding the specifics of the agreement to the public. The federal court of Dolores mandated the ministry, under the leadership of Luis Caputo, to submit the information in compliance with a stay order.
In June, a filing was made by attorneys representing the collective Lawyers for Public Interest Coordination (CAIP, by its Spanish initials), which conducts investigations into Argentina’s agreements with the IMF, alongside the human rights nonprofit Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS). Their presence sought to compel the economy ministry to disclose documentation pertaining to the agreement and criticized “illegal” actions in a prior request for the files. The loan amounting to US$20 billion received approval from the IMF’s Executive Board in April. Approximately US$12 billion was allocated without delay. In August, the fund allocated an additional US$2 billion following Argentina’s approval of their June revision.
The program was structured to offer medium-term balance of payment assistance following the request from President Javier Milei’s administration for support in navigating their economic reforms and efforts to stabilize Argentina’s troubled finances. The Dolores court determined that the economy ministry “went against the law on Access to Public Information” due to its noncompliance with a request for access to the documentation submitted by the group of lawyers in March, prior to the approval of the agreement. At that moment, the ministry refrained from providing the information promptly, directed the lawyers to seek it through alternative channels, and ultimately failed to respond to their inquiry.
“In a democratic society, it is essential that state authorities operate under the principle of full disclosure, which presumes that all information is accessible,” the ruling stated. The economy ministry indicated that it “made it more complicated” for the lawyers to access the documents by instructing them to request the information through a system established during the dictatorship from 1966 to 1973. According to a press release from CELS, the system, which predates the 2016 law on Access to Public Information, is characterized as “restrictive and bureaucratic.”
CELS stated that “the economy ministry violated the law on Access to Public Information” and that it also sought to hide the information with schemes to avoid handing it over to the court. “The court’s decision reaffirmed that the right to access public information is essential for the democratic control of state decisions,” particularly in the context of high-impact economic policy such as a new agreement with the IMF.