Montero v Fernández

• Jurisdicción: Argentina
• Número de expediente: Case No. 188
• Fecha: 03 Junio 1938
• Emisor: Federal Court of Appeals (Argentina)

Argentina, Cámara de Apelaciones de la Plata.

Case No. 188

Montero

and

Fernández.

Treaties — Operation of — Necessity of Municipal Legislation Expressly Altering Existing Laws — International Labour Conventions.

The Facts.—The plaintiff sued for compensation for injuries sustained in work on the defendant's farm. He recovered judgment in the court of first instance. The defendant appealed on the ground that general farm workers were excluded from the rights of compensation given by Law No. 9,688 of 1915. That right was conceded to them by the Convention concerning workmen's compensation in agriculture adopted at Geneva in 1921 and approved by Law No. 12,232.1 The issue was whether the approval of a treaty by general law ipso facto modified conflicting provisions of a prior domestic law, or whether a new domestic law expressly amending prior legislation was necessary before the provisions of the treaty could be given effect.

Held: that the appeal must be dismissed. No special amending law was necessary. The Court said: “The enactment of Law No. 12,232 has raised the question whether it by itself modifies the system of Law No. 9,688 or whether there is necessary a special text amending Law No. 9,688. … In our opinion the requirement of a law to amend the local law is unnecessary; the law which ratified the treaty is sufficient for that purpose. In a conflict between the national law and a treaty, the latter ought without doubt to prevail when, as in the present case, its ratification implies a manifestation of the will of the legislative bodies subsequent to the local law whose text is irreconcilable with the treaty. Such is, moreover, the Argentine practice. The National Congress, for example, ratified the Montevideo treaties without it being necessary to modify expressly the domestic laws which no longer apply in the cases covered by the treaty (National Constitution, Article 31).1 The...