New judicial attack by the herbalists so that the INYM recovers powers

In a 134-page writing, Jorge Skripczuk, president of the Impulso Yerbatero Civil Association; Hugo Sand, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Misiones (Apam); Salvador María Torres, president of the Río Paraná Cooperative Limited; Julio Alfredo Petterson, president of the Civil Association of Yerbatero Producers of the North; Edgar Gustavo Hein, president of the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Misiones Limitada; and Antonio Rodríguez Franza, president of the Association of Producers and Tareferos of Alto Uruguay, asked the Federal Justice to “declare the unconstitutionality, absolute and insurable nullity and inapplicability” of articles 164, 165, 166, 167 and 168 of 70/2023, which pruned the powers that Law 25,564 conferred on the National Yerba Mate Institute more than two decades ago.

Before the Court, they maintained that the presidential decrees generated “a change of legal nature in the INYM, going from a consultation body for the different actors in the herbal sector, to an appendix of the industry.” And The decrees generated “legal uncertainty” in the sector.

In that sense, the herbalists affirmed that through decree 70/2023, “essential regulatory instruments provided for by law to guarantee the economic sustainability of primary productioninstitutional mechanisms for sectoral coordination were suppressed and the public intervention tools aimed at correcting the structural asymmetries within the herbal market were dismantled.”

“The body created by the National Congress is devoid of the necessary powers to fulfill the institutional purpose that justified its creation, substantially altering the legal nature of the current legal regime,” generating “current and direct impact on the rights and legitimate interests of primary producers of yerba mate and the workers of the activity,” they noted.

This new presentation was made because at the time the Federal Court of Posadas declared the appeal for protection that the producers had filed inadmissible and decreed the expiration of the precautionary measure initially ordered. The Justice Department recommended that the herbalists “readapt the judicial action in accordance with article 322 of the CPCCN.”

In parallel, a precautionary measure was presented that seeks the “immediate suspension of the effects and application” of the decrees questioned to “avoid the deepening of the damage already verified on the primary productive sector, the consolidation of a process of economic decapitalization and the deterioration of the capacities of the herbal organization.”

In that writing, the herbalists also requested that the scope of the resolution 152 of the INYM, by which more than 20 technical employees were dismissed of the Institute.

The producers estimated that the price of the green leaf should be 700 pesos per kilo to have a profitability margin. Currently the industrial sector pays an average of 240 pesos.

Taking into account that last year 890 million kilos of raw material were processed, herbalists gave up income of almost 410 billion pesos.