A Matter of Respect

Eight months ago, Radical Party Leader Ricardo Balbin was arrested by Peronista police on charges of being "disrespectful" to the President of the Republic. In Peronista eyes, the 46-year-old lawyer had added injury to insult when he dared run for governor of Buenos Aires Province against a Peron-backed candidate. After his arrest, Balbin boldly insisted on a trial, but one embarrassed judge after another managed to get the ticklish case off his docket; meanwhile, Balbin was shunted from jail to jail. Finally, an obscure La

Plata judge accepted it. Last week he handed down a verdict,* sentenced Balbin to five years in jail.

Under the "law of disrespect" passed a year ago by the supine Argentine Congress, the verdict also deprived Balbin for life of the right to vote or hold public office. During his prison term, he will be legally unable to act as father to his three children and will have no power to manage his modest property.

At no point in the 46-page decision did the judge specify Balbin's offending words or deeds. Balbin recalled speeches in which he had called Peron a "real enemy of the country." But this was no different from what some other Argentine politicians were saying.

In various speeches, Balbin had mentioned another subject--Evita Peron. "The public charities of the President's wife," Balbin once said, "seem to redound to her private good." Another time, Balbin remarked: "Social justice for her can be summed up as her own economic betterment." Observers believed that it was disrespect not so much to the President as to the President's wife that had earned Balbin his harsh sentence.

Prisoner Balbin was not cowed. Said he: "I have no regrets. I would say what I said again. I am less a prisoner than those on the outside."

* In Argentina, as in some other Latin American countries, there are no trials in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the term. The judge sends his secretaries to take testimony from the defense and prosecution, makes his decision--in writing-- after studying the written depositions.

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