Milei appoints chief Buenos Aires prosecutor as new justice minister

March 4, 2026 10:23 AM EST

FILE PHOTO: Argentina's President Javier Milei speaks during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Lucila Sigal

BUENOS ‌AIRES, March ​4 (Reuters) - ​Argentine President Javier Milei said on Wednesday he has appointed chief Buenos ‌Aires prosecutor Juan Bautista Mahiques as the ⁠country's new justice minister.

Mahiques, who has been the ‌attorney general of the ‌Argentine capital since October 2019, will replace Mariano Cuneo Libarona, who had been justice ​minister since December 2023, Milei announced in a posting on X.

Local newspaper La Nacion ⁠reported that Libarona had cited personal reasons for his departure.

"I assume ​this role with the conviction that without legal certainty there is no investment, ​without stable rules there ‌is no development, and without independent judges there is no republic," Mahiques ⁠said in a separate post on X.

In a speech before Congress last Sunday, Milei announced that ⁠this year he will seek to pass more reforms ​to the penal code to introduce harsher sentences for criminals.

The government won several legislative victories last week ‌when Congress approved a controversial labor reform and a change to the ‌penal code that lowers the age of ⁠criminal responsibility from 16 ‌to 14.

(Reporting ​by Lucila Sigal; Writing by Leila Miller; Editing by Nicolás Misculin and Paul ‌Simao)



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