Public Faith, No Contradiction,
and the Administration of Justice.
2026 Update Based on a Real Case.

Law: Contemporary Approach and Analysis

1. Public interest and public faith

This work updates an article about a real case that occurred in the Judicial Department of San Martín (Province of Buenos Aires) between 2008 and 2011, during my professional practice as a lawyer. It is a situation that compromised two essential legal goods in a republican State: public faith —as a guarantee of credibility of official acts— and due process (arts. 15 and 18, National Constitution). Public faith —taught the doctrine (Armella, Impellizzeri, Treatise on Notarial Law)— consists of the certainty and efficacy that public power grants to the acts of notaries and officials regarding facts that they announce as fulfilled by them or passed in their presence. Its vulnerability affects the legitimate trust of litigants and the regularity of the justice service.

On December 6, 2008, in La Plata, the Court of First Instance in Civil and Commercial Matters N° 3 of the Judicial Department of San Martín, in charge of Dr. María Silvina Pérez, received a Diploma of Recognition for Management System Improvement granted by the Presidency of the Nation, from the hands of the Secretary of Public Management of the Nation, Juan Manuel Abal Medina. Also present were the Vice President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Elena Highton de Nolasco; the Minister of the Supreme Court of the Province of Buenos Aires, Hilda Kogan; the President and First Vice President of the Argentine Magistracy Federation, Abel Fleming and Víctor María Vélez, respectively; and the President of the Bar Association of the Province of Buenos Aires, Gerardo Rafael Salas. This distinction, far from being an anecdotal fact, made the procedural anomie that will be described more paradoxical, evidencing how structural failures can coexist with formal recognitions. The names of intervening magistrates or officials will not be mentioned (all will be replaced by a random amount of "X"), in safeguard of the impartiality that intends to preside over this analysis and for understanding that one can respectfully disagree with judicial decisions without the need to personalize the criticisms. The facts, documented with the certified copies of the file that I still keep, serve to examine, with the distance of time, how the contradiction between official instruments should have been resolved according to the logical structure of the judicial syllogism taught by Ariel Provenzani Casares in his commentary on the ruling "Ruarte c. Lano", and in light of the doctrine of Adolfo A. Rivas on the incompatibility of rebuttal with certain procedural acts.

2. Original fact and its problematic

The main litigation had as its object the compliance with a promise of sale celebrated on August 28, 2000. In its preliminary part —legally accepted term to designate the identification data and domiciles that precede the clauses— the real domiciles of the parties were denounced. Specifically, the ninth clause of the ticket established a jurisdiction extension in favor of the Courts of Gral. San Martín, fixing as special domicile for all intimations the one denounced in the preliminary part (for the buyer, a property on Junín street, Villa Ballester). Despite this, the selling party promoted a lawsuit for deed execution and damages, denouncing a domicile on Ayacucho street, which was not the contractually agreed one.

The successive writs issued to that domicile were returned by the Notifying Officer, who gave faith that the required person did not live there. The buyer became aware of the proceedings, appeared in the file, and promoted, in time and form (December 2, 2008), an incident of nullity of the service of process of the complaint and all consecutive acts (fs. 15 to 23vta.), in strict compliance with the deadlines established by art. 149 of the CPCCBA to not validate the vitiated act. By providence of December 2, 2008 (fs. 73), the judge Dr. XXXXXXXXXX had the party presented, denied the formation of a separate incident, and ordered to run transfer of the nullity plea for five days.

The regulation applicable to notifiers.
During the processing of these proceedings (2008-2011), the Agreement 3397/08 of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Province of Buenos Aires was in force, titled "Regulation on the Regime of File Receptions, Archives of the Judicial Power, and Mandates and Notifications" (full text available here). Said regulation, which unified and updated previous regulations, established a clear organizational framework for the notification service, with provisions that are of particular relevance to the case:

• Responsibility of the Head/Person in Charge of the Office: "Supervise the work of the personnel under their charge and directly monitor their dedication and behavior" (Annex I, point f).
• Obligation to report irregularities (such as lack of copies): "Resolve doubts that may arise in the service or internal regime in cases that are not foreseen or clearly defined" (Annex I, point e).
• Objective liability over the fidelity and accuracy of the information supplied: "Is responsible for the organization, conservation, and custody of the material entered in the dependency, of its functioning, of the fidelity and accuracy of the documents and information that it supplies" (Annex I, pertinent article).

Before the sanction of this unified agreement, the provisions contained in Agreement 1814 of the S.C.B.A. (modified by Agreement 1840 and Res. 1077/79) were in force, which established a similar regime. In this framework, the presumption of compliance derived from said norms must be highlighted: art. 30 of Title V (Heads of Offices) of the Regulation of the General Directorate of Mandates and Notifications, and arts. 19 and 20 of the Instructions for the personnel of the offices of mandates and notifications (Provisions for Notifiers. Obligations). It is noticed that, on the one hand, the regulatory norm empowered the Heads of Offices to return the mandates and writs that do not meet certain requirements (among them, the copies provided for by article 120 of the CPCCBA). Likewise, it placed on the Notifiers the obligation to return it with an explanatory note, addressed to the Head of the Office of Mandates and Notifications when, among other circumstances, they observed discordance between the original and duplicate; the lack of copies of writings; of documents, etc. These provisions reinforce the idea that the act of the notifier is the product of a regulated procedure, and its faith cannot be discarded without more.

A) The transfer (December 2008).
To notify this transfer, a writ was issued with copies of twenty (20) useful pages, where the content was meticulously detailed (incident writ, promise of sale, annex, cease and desist letter, tax bills, ID copies, notarial act, etc.). The attorney-in-fact of the plaintiff was notified on December 11, 2008, at her procedural domicile. The writ was processed and, in her absence, a copy was fixed on the door. On December 16, 2008, the attorney returned the writ, affirming that a copy of the writing in transfer (the incident of nullity) had not been attached, only copies of the complaint and its documentation. She accompanied her own copy and requested the suspension of the deadline to answer.

Analysis of the situation in light of the regulations in force in 2008 (Vélez Civil Code and CPCCBA)
According to arts. 979 inc. 2° and 993 of the Vélez Civil Code, the record of the Notifying Officer in the writ constituted a public instrument that made full faith of the facts fulfilled in their presence, in this case, the delivery of the copies detailed in the writ. The mere manifestation of the opposing attorney was insufficient to dismantle that presumption of veracity. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Province of Buenos Aires has been categorical in this regard: "what is expressed by the Notifying Officer in their report makes full faith and can only be attacked through rebuttal of fraud" (Summary B5056606, CC0000 NE 180 95 (R) I 06/11/2008). Likewise, it has been sustained that "the notification writ constitutes a public instrument ... and by which article 993 of the cited code, grants full faith to the circumstances passed before the public official and can only be dismantled through rebuttal of fraud" (Summary B2950720, CC0002 QL 2447 B RSI-4-99 I 12/02/1999, "Tarnowiki, Juan Carlos c/Balatto, Silvia Inés and Another s/Eviction").

The plaintiff did NOT promote the incident of rebuttal of fraud (art. 393 CPCCBA) against the act of the Notifying Officer, which is the legal mechanism to question the veracity of what is reported by a public official. Without the promotion of this incident, the public faith of the notifier had to prevail, and the magistrate could not suspend the deadline based on a simple report from the court clerk that was limited to transcribing the statements of the plaintiff's attorney. By not promoting the plaintiff's rebuttal of fraud against the notifier, the judge should have rejected the request for suspension and given processing to the incident of nullity promoted by the defendant, maintaining the full faith of the public instrument until it was duly impeached by the corresponding legal path.

B) The Court Clerk's report and the suspension of deadlines (December 29, 2008).
Instead of applying the cited norms, the magistrate Dr. XXXXXXXXXX, by providence of December 29, 2008 (fs. 80), granted the plaintiff's request and requested "a report by the court clerk". That same day, the Court Clerk (Dr. XXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX) reported: "as arises from the records of the case, with the writ existing at fs. 77/78, copies of the complaint writing, copy of the domain report, three copies of regularization regime, three payment receipts, copy of cease and desist letter, copy of a receipt, copy of a payment agreement, and a copy of a note received by the Provincial Directorate of Revenues have been accompanied".

Analysis of this decision in light of the regulations in force in 2008
This decision of the magistrate and the report of the Court Clerk present, respectfully, several problematic aspects:

1. Illegal displacement of public faith: The magistrate preferred a report from the Actuary over the faith of the notifying officer, without a rebuttal of fraud promoted by the plaintiff mediating, which violated the principle of full faith of the public instrument (art. 993 CCV). The jurisprudence of the SCBA is clear: the faith of the notifier can only be destroyed through rebuttal of fraud, and the plaintiff did not promote it.
2. Excess in the function of the Court Clerk: The Court Clerk was not limited to giving faith of a fact passed in their presence (the return of the informed writ). Instead, she issued a judgment about the content of the writ, affirming that copies of the complaint had been accompanied in it, an extreme that she had not witnessed. The doctrine of Adolfo A. Rivas and Mario A. Zinny is clear: the judgments of officials do not produce public faith; only intersensory perceptions (sight and hearing) generate it. The Court Clerk has public faith to certify copies (collation) and to testify to the existence of documents in the file (relation), but can never extend to the materiality of the procedural facts they did not witness, because that is the exclusive reserve of the public faith of perception of the Notifying Officer (art. 290 CCyC Nación). The report of the Court Clerk's Office lacked legal aptitude to displace the public faith of the notifier.
3. Inversion of the procedural burden: Instead of demanding that the plaintiff promote the rebuttal of fraud to sustain her affirmation, the judge interrupted the process in favor of who made an unproven affirmation. Art. 375 of the CPCCBA establishes that who alleges a fact must prove it; the plaintiff did not prove her statement and, furthermore, she was granted a procedural benefit (suspension of terms) without legal support. The plaintiff should have promoted the rebuttal of fraud against the notifier if she intended to destroy the public faith of her act. By not doing so, the judge should have maintained the full faith of the public instrument and rejected the request for suspension.
4. Harm to the defendant and burden of impeachment: The defendant (buyer) had promoted in time and form the incident of nullity of the transfer of the complaint (December 2, 2008) and notified in time and form the same, giving transfer of the documentary indicated in the instrument. The burden of impeaching the public faith of the notifier fell on the plaintiff, who was the one who affirmed that the copies of the incident had not been delivered to her.

Immediately after the report, that same December 29, 2008, the judge dictated another providence (fs. 80) where she resolved to suspend the term to answer the transfer and ordered to issue a new writ, arguing that art. 120 of the CPCCBA had been breached. This decision, which implied giving reason to the plaintiff, was based exclusively on the report of the Court Clerk who, in turn, was based on the statements of the attorney-in-fact of the plaintiff.

3. Analysis from the judicial syllogism

Applying the methodology of Provenzani Casares, the reasoning that the court should have carried out before the Motion for Reconsideration against the providence that suspended the deadline, should have been structured as follows:

Main argument (judicial syllogism) for the Motion for Reconsideration:
– Major premise (MP): Every public instrument —and the processed notification writ is one, according to art. 979 inc. 2° CCV, today art. 289 inc. b CCyC Nación— makes full faith of the facts that the public official announces as fulfilled in their presence (art. 993 CCV, today art. 290 CCyC Nación). The reports from the court clerk, on the other hand, only have public faith of relation (they certify what exists in the file), but cannot issue judgments about facts that the official did not witness, since such judgments lack public faith (Zinny).
– Minor premise (Mp): In the case, the notification writ (public instrument) reports that the copies of the writing of incident of nullity (20 pages) were attached. The report of the Court Clerk affirms, contradicting the writ, that copies of the complaint and other documentation were attached. The Court Clerk did not witness the act of notification, so her affirmation is a judgment that contradicts a public instrument with full faith.
– Conclusion (C): Before this contradiction, the only legally valid way to resolve the Motion for Reconsideration is to make prevail the public faith of the Notifying Officer (art. 290 CCyC Nación), rejecting the suspension of the deadline and commanding the plaintiff that, if she insists on her version, she promotes the Incident of Nullity (art. 149 CPCCBA) offering compelling proof. Not doing so implies violating due process (art. 18 CN) and depriving efficacy to public faith.

Backing arguments (external justification):
To justify the major premise, the judge should have cited arts. 993 to 995 of the old Civil Code (current 290 and 296 of the CCyC Nación) and the jurisprudence of the provincial courts that, in analogous cases, have sustained that "what is expressed by the Notifying Officer in their report makes full faith and can only be attacked through rebuttal of fraud" (Summary B5056606, CC0000 NE 180 95 (R) I 06/11/2008). Likewise, she should have remembered that "the notification writ constitutes a public instrument ... and by which article 993 of the cited code, grants full faith to the circumstances passed before the public official and can only be dismantled through rebuttal of fraud" (Summary B2950720, CC0002 QL 2447 B RSI-4-99 I 12/02/1999, "Tarnowiki, Juan Carlos c/Balatto, Silvia Inés and Another s/Eviction").

The doctrine of Adolfo A. Rivas on the ruling "Caneva c. Rama" is particularly illustrative in distinguishing the different planes of impeachment. Rivas argues that the rebuttal of fraud incident (art. 393 CPCCBA) is designed especially for documentary evidence of the substantive legal business, and that applying it to mere steps or procedures of the trial would paralyze the process. However, this general rule admits a fundamental distinction based on the type of public faith that the procedural act holds: (1) When the procedural act is the notification act of the Notifying Officer, it takes on the character of a public instrument (art. 289 CCyC Nación) that enjoys public faith of perception (the official personally witnessed the delivery of the copies). In this specific case, the jurisprudence of the SCBA is categorical: the veracity of what is reported by the notifier can only be attacked through rebuttal of fraud. (2) Conversely, when the act is the Court Clerk's report, it only holds public faith of relation or collation (certifying what is in the file), lacking direct perception of the notification act. Being a mere administrative judgment or interpretation and not a public instrument with faith of perception, it is not susceptible to rebuttal of fraud. This precision is fundamental to understanding that, although both are procedural acts, the nature of the public faith that covers them determines the correct impugnative path.

Faced with a norm that grants full faith to the act of the notifier (Art. 993 CC), from which the validity of the notification is derived, and an act of the Court Clerk that contains a contradictory declaration, an objective contradiction arises.

4. Critical analysis of the case resolutions

A) The motion for reconsideration against the providence of fs. 80 and its denial (February 10, 2009).
Against the providence of fs. 80 that suspended the terms and ordered to issue a new writ, the defendant interposed a motion for reconsideration with subsidiary appeal (arts. 238, 241 and 248 of the CPCCBA), arguing the arbitrariness of basing a procedural decision on a report from the court clerk that did not enjoy public faith. The judge Dr. XXXXXXXXXX, when rejecting the motion for reconsideration and granting the subsidiary appeal (fs. 88), sustained that her previous providence was adjusted to law (art. 36 CPCC). With due respect, it should be noted that art. 36 of the CPCCBA, while granting broad instructing powers to the judge, does not empower her to dispense with procedural and substantive norms. The decision to maintain the suspension of terms based on a report from the Court Clerk that contradicted a public instrument, without opening an incident of falsehood or re-channeling the impugnative path, implied an affectation to the right of defense of the defendant. The Higher Court, when granting the appeal, could have corrected this error, although this did not occur in the final instance.

B) The resolution that rejected "in limine" the rebuttal of fraud (February 20, 2009).
This resolution, signed by Dr. XXXXXXXXXX, is the most controversial from the technical-legal perspective. The magistrate sustained two main arguments:

1. "The rebuttal of fraud is not a suitable mechanism to impeach a judicial pronouncement". Although this premise is correct, here a judicial pronouncement was not being impeached, but the report of the Court Clerk, an act of a public official. It was an error in the qualification of the claim.

2. "It is extensible to the reports and certifications that the actuaries ... proceeded according to the judicial mandate to report what arises from the record...". The magistrate equated the report of the Court Clerk to a mere documentary record, without noticing that the Court Clerk did not report on what "arose" from the writ (an indirect perception), but that, in fact, she issued an affirmation about its content that contradicted the faith of the notifying officer. The error, from a logical point of view, is that the Court Clerk did not report on a fact passed in her presence, but that she made a biased interpretation of the document, taking as valid the version of one of the parties.

The resolution of Dr. XXXXXXXXXX omitted to apply art. 993 of the Civil Code (then in force) and the illustrative jurisprudential doctrine of the National Chamber in Civil Matters, Room H, in "Rafael Saiegh e hijos c. Leiserson" (LL 2000-E-613), which —although it is not of direct application in the provincial scope— clearly distinguishes the impeachment for falsehood of the instrument (which affects the faith of the public official) from the nullity of the legal act. By rejecting "in limine" the incident, the possibility of proving their statement was prevented to the defendant, cutting off their right of defense in trial (art. 18 CN).

Precision on the procedural strategy employed and impugnative paths:
It is worth noting a relevant factual aspect of the file: on December 29, 2008, three legal acts occurred on the same date (the request for a report, the court clerk's report, and the providence that deemed it valid). Given this circumstance, and for practical purposes to prevent the report from being validated by inaction (a conceptual or logical impossibility, but a real possibility), a cumulative procedural strategy was chosen: a motion for reconsideration with subsidiary appeal was filed against the providence that deemed the report valid, the report was challenged within that same motion, and, incidentally, the incident of rebuttal of fraud was promoted against the court clerk's report.

However, from a strictly doctrinal perspective, it must be recognized that rebuttal of fraud was not the technically suitable path to attack said report, given that it does not have the character of a public instrument with public faith of perception, but rather mere faith of relation. The correct path to question a procedural act vitiated in this manner was the incident of nullity (arts. 149, 172, and 178 CPCCBA). However, in accordance with the principle of ex officio re-channeling derived from effective judicial protection (arts. 17 and 18 CN) and the judge's ordering powers (arts. 34 and 36 CPCCBA Law 15,240), the court could not dismiss the claim in limine. The magistrate should have ordered that the incident be processed as procedural nullity, requiring the party to adapt their claim and, if applicable, summoning the Court Clerk to exercise their defense (art. 393 CPCCBA). Dismissing in limine a claim that, although misdirected, raised a serious irregularity, constitutes an excess of formal rigor that vices due process, especially when the reconsideration had already been denied and the core issue remained unresolved.

C) The outcome of the case and the conciliation hearing (October 2010).
Due to the lack of fondo resolution on the contradiction between instruments, the parties reached an agreement in the main file that, in principle, was convenient for them. In the hearing of October 25, 2010, the defendant desisted from the appeal that had remained pending. As a consequence of this, the Higher Court declared the deferred appeal abstract, making any pronouncement on the contradiction inofficious. From a legal perspective, this outcome is understandable, since the courts should not issue opinions on questions that have become abstract due to the conciliatory will of the parties. However, for the undersigned, this solution left an eternal "question mark" on the truth of the facts, since it was never determined which of the two public officials had failed to tell the truth.

5. Public instrument, contradiction, and impugnative paths

The distinguished study of Mario Antonio Zinny ("Ideological falsehood") reminds us that the public instrument is a thing that proves the public act of the official. Public faith is the legally imposed belief in the veracity of the narrator, and can only be destroyed through the path of rebuttal of fraud (arts. 993 CCiv. and 296 CCyC Nación) when it comes to public instruments that document the substantive legal business. The jurisprudence of the Chamber of Azul (Room I, "Simons c. Municipalidad de Olavarría", 1999) sustained that the public instrument requires three assumptions: the person of the documenter (official), the legal form, and the competence.

The central mistake that, in my judgment, crossed the entire file was the following: the court confused the public faith of the notifying officer —which covers the facts perceived sensorially, art. 312 CCyC Nación— with the faith of the acts of mere procedure of the Court Clerk, which is not based on a direct perception but on the interpretation of written records. As Zinny taught, public faith does not extend to the judgments of the official, but only to the facts that they perceive "corporally". The report of the Court Clerk contained a judgment (that copies of the complaint were attached in the writ) that she could not have perceived by herself. On the other hand, the Notifying Officer gave faith of a fact that he witnessed: the delivery of copies of the documentation detailed in the writ. Therefore, the contradiction should have been resolved giving prevalence to the presumption of veracity of the act of the notifier, unless the plaintiff promoted and proved the Incident of Rebuttal of Fraud. This did not happen, and the burden of proof was inverted.

Integrated doctrinal clarification (Rivas, Liberatore, Zinny): The doctrine of Rivas and Zinny coincides in that the rebuttal of fraud is provided for public instruments that document facts that the official perceives directly. The certification of the court clerk on what "arises from the records of the case" is not a perceived fact, but an interpretation. Therefore, the path to controvert that type of reports is not, in principle, the rebuttal of fraud, but the incident of nullity (arts. 149, 172, and 178 of the CPCCBA). In fact, the defendant had already interposed a motion for reconsideration with subsidiary appeal against the providence that ordered the new writ, questioning the validity of the decision based on the report. However, the interposition of the incident of rebuttal of fraud against the report itself pursued directly attacking the source of the contradiction. Although that path was not technically the correct one, according to the doctrine of Gloria L. Liberatore, the judge cannot dismiss in limine a claim of impeachment for the sole fact that the party has chosen an incorrect procedural path, when the narrated facts allow to notice that it is a procedural vice. The magistrate must apply the principle of ex officio re-channeling, requiring the party to adapt their claim to the correct path, in application of the principles of procedural economy, effective judicial protection, and objective legal truth (arts. 17 and 18 CN; arts. 34 and 36 CPCCBA Law 15,240; SCBA Agreement 3354, art. 5 inc. c). In the concrete case, the ambiguity of the report ("as arises from the records") and the contradiction with the notarial writ should have led the court to order that the incident be processed as procedural nullity, with summons of the Court Clerk if appropriate (art. 393 CPCCBA), and not to reject it liminarly. The magistrate who took the report for granted without opening that discussion, giving it greater legal validity than that of the very processed and informed instrument, violated the hierarchy of public faith.

6. The framework of the Civil and Commercial Code (arts. 289 to 312)

The CCyC Nación, in force since 2015, has maintained and perfected the regulation of public instruments, and its analogical application to analogous cases is illustrative. Art. 289 inc. b enumerates as public instruments "the instruments that notaries or public officials extend with the requirements established by laws". Art. 290 is clear: "The public instrument makes full faith: (...) of the facts that the public official enunciates as fulfilled by them or before them". This norm replaces the old art. 993 of the Vélez Civil Code, but maintains the need for a contradictory process for its destruction (art. 296 CCyC Nación). Likewise, inc. b of the same article provides that the public instrument makes full faith "as to the content of the declarations about conventions, provisions, payments, recognitions, and enunciations of facts directly related to the principal object of the instrumented act, until contrary proof is produced", which introduces a graduation in the probatory efficacy according to the nature of the enunciations.

Art. 311, applicable by analogy to the diligences of the notifying officers, requires that the persons be previously informed of the character in which the official intervenes. Art. 312 is the most relevant for this case: "The probatory value of the acts is limited to the facts that the notary has in sight, to the verification of their existence and their state". Extended to the judicial scope, the Court Clerk can only give faith of what is recorded in the file (specifically, that the attorney returned the processed writ with a writing, where she accompanied copies of the complaint, indicating that they were the ones received with the instrument), not of what happened materially in the court, then in the office of notifications, and subsequently in the act of processing. Under the CCyC Nación, the resolution that suspended the deadline based on the report of the Court Clerk would have been even more indefensible, since art. 290 limits public faith to the facts that the public official enunciates as fulfilled by them or before them. The act of notification is an essential procedural act and the contradiction in its record directly affects the validity of the process, so the incident of nullity (art. 149 CPCCBA) against the report and the motion for reconsideration against the providence that had it for sufficient, are the only constitutionally admissible paths.

7. The role of bar associations and professional ethics

In the framework of this case, complaints were filed before the Bar Association of San Martín (April 7, 2009), before criminal justice (IPP nº 15-00-04 49 26-10, UFI Nº 02), before the Undersecretariat of Disciplinary Control of the Supreme Court of Justice (November 1, 2010), and before the Bar Association of San Isidro (San Isidro, July 2, 2013). Beyond the negative result of each of those proceedings (filing of the criminal case, lack of resolution on the validity of both instruments in disciplinary headquarters, and the qualification of "alleged irregularities" in the associations), the case raises a deeper reflection on the function of the bar associations and undersecretariat of disciplinary control.

A justice system that prides itself as such, must reward ethical conduct and technical knowledge; and sanction carelessness or inexcusable ignorance of the norms. In this order of ideas, it is appropriate to ask, with due respect and within the framework of an academic analysis: Who should, in principle, be sanctioned both by the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Bar Association of the Province of Buenos Aires and by the Undersecretariat of Disciplinary Control of the S.C.B.A: the lawyers and officials who know the norms and their trade (and invoke them opportunely), or those who ignore them?. What happens with those who, knowing them, submit to judicial decisions that ignore them?. The answer, in light of the duties of loyalty, probity, and good faith (arts. 1, 2, 5, and 21 of the Code of Ethics) seems, in principle, evident. The function of the lawyer is not that of a mere manager who obeys without questioning, but that of a collaborator of justice who is obliged to denounce the irregularities that affect due process, as was attempted to be done in this case. As Luis A. Rodríguez Saiach points out, the lawyer is a collaborator of the judge and is at the service of justice (art. 59, inc. 1, law 5177), and rulings that conceal objective legal truth due to manifest ritual excess violate art. 18 CN.

8. Conclusion and validity of objective legal truth

The case, despite having concluded with an agreement between the parties, continues to be a warning about the fragility of public faith and due process, when the control bodies themselves do not investigate the contradictions in which the officials of the Judicial Power themselves incur. The search for objective legal truth demands that no public official can sustain contradictory affirmations without a mechanism of clarification being activated; public faith is not a shield against the investigation of falsehood, but a guarantee for the litigant. As Pedro Bertolino teaches, the "truth of the process" is identified with the judicial proceedings considered as a whole, and the judge cannot consciously renounce the consideration of procedural data that, appearing patent, are essential for the resolution of the case. With manifest ritual excess there is no objective legal truth; without it, there is no adequate service of justice. The judicial syllogism that the judges should have applied was inevitable: if A (writ of the notifier) and B (report of the court clerk) are contradictory affirmations and both come from acts of public officials, it is the obligation of the court to resolve the contradiction making prevail the public instrument with public faith of perception (the writ) over the judgment of the court clerk, or failing that, to open the incident of nullity and determine which of them is true. Not doing so implies sacrificing justice in favor of a misunderstood celerity or, worse, of the preservation of institutional appearances.

By 2026, the strengthening of the mechanisms of disciplinary responsibility and active transparency —SCBA Agreement 3354, art. 5 inc. c, establishes: "The procedures must be carried out with economy, simplicity, celerity, and efficacy, seeking to determine in each case the objective legal truth"— should ensure that facts like the narrated one are investigated in depth. In Proyecto WWW this analysis is maintained, with the hope that it serves students, lawyers, and judges, as a reminder that public faith is not an unquestionable dogma, but a presumption that yields before the proof of falsehood; and that the principle of non-contradiction is an unavoidable beacon of judicial reasoning.

Final note on the sources and professional responsibility: All the judicial resolutions transcribed in this article are faithful copies of those existing in the file, whose certified copies are in my possession. The omissions of proper names (parties, magistrates, court clerk) respond to a criterion of prudence and respect for the privacy of the intervenients, without affecting in anything the rigor of the legal analysis. The publication of these decisions, which are public by their nature, does not constitute a violation of the duty of confidentiality, but a legitimate exercise of the right to founded criticism and the control of the quality of the justice service, in the terms of arts. 14, 32, and 75 inc. 22 of the National Constitution; arts. 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both with constitutional hierarchy according to art. 75 inc. 22 CN. My firmness in the exposition is limited to the technical analysis of the norms and does not imply, in any way, the imputation of crimes or bad faith to the intervening magistrates and officials, to whom I owe respect for their investiture.

📚 Links of interest, cited doctrine, and updated regulations

• SCBA Agreement 3354
• Civil and Commercial Code of the Nation (CCyC Nación), arts. 289 to 312 (Public instruments).
• Civil and Commercial Procedural Code of the Province of Buenos Aires (Law 15,240), arts. 34, 36, 120, 135 to 151 (notifications), 149 (nullity), 172, 178, 238 and 241 (reconsideration), 248 (subsidiary appeal), 393 (rebuttal of fraud), 375.
• Civil Code of the Nation (Not in Force).
• Agreement 3397/08
• Provenzani Casares, Ariel E., "The 'judicial syllogism' and the 'backing arguments'", APBA 2014-01-20. (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Zinny, Mario Antonio, "Ideological falsehood", LL 2006-C-1032. (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Rivas, Adolfo A., "On notifications and the rebuttal of fraud", LL 1993-A-518. (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Liberatore, Gloria Lucrecia, "Nullity of notifications and rebuttal of fraud. Intervention of the public official", Sup. Doctrina Judicial Procesal 2009 (September), 74. (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Rivera, Julio C., Institutions of Civil Law. General Part, Abeledo Perrot, 2010.
• Bertolino, Pedro, La verdad jurídica objetiva (Objective Legal Truth), 2nd ed., LexisNexis, 2007. (Commented by Nicolás Guzmán in JA 2008-I-1418). (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Camps, Carlos Enrique, Código Procesal Civil y Comercial de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Anotado - Comentado - Concordado) (commentary on art. 36). (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• Rodríguez Saiach, Luis A., Derecho Procesal Teórico Práctico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (chapter on Law 5177 on the Practice of Law). (Work cited and analyzed in accordance with the right to quote of art. 10, Law 11,723).
• American Convention on Human Rights, art. 8 (Judicial guarantees).
• CIJ Note: "For their management, they award a Buenos Aires court" (National Quality Award to Court N° 3 of San Martín).