A court has ordered Argentina’s economy ministry to submit all documentation regarding the country’s latest deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by next Friday. The ruling comes after the office failed to release information on the details of the agreement to the public.

The federal court of Dolores ordered the ministry, led by Luis Caputo, to file the information in response to a stay. It was filed by attorneys from the collective Lawyers for Public Interest Coordination (CAIP, by its Spanish initials), which investigates Argentina’s IMF deals, and the human rights nonprofit Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) in June. Their stay aimed to force the economy ministry to release documentation about the agreement and denounced “illegal” maneuvers in a previous request for the files.

The US$20 billion loan was approved by the IMF’s Executive Board in April. Around US$12 billion was disbursed immediately. In August, the fund disbursed a further US$2 billion after Argentina passed their June revision.

The program was designed to provide medium-term balance of payment assistance after President Javier Milei’s government approached it for support to manage their economic reforms and attempts to stabilize Argentina’s beleaguered finances.

The Dolores court said that the economy ministry “went against the law on Access to Public Information” after failing to comply with a request to access the documentation that the group of lawyers had presented in March, when the agreement had yet to be approved. At the time, the ministry did not immediately provide the information, instructed the lawyers to request it via other means, and ultimately never responded to their request.

“In a democratic society, it is essential that state authorities operate under the principle of full disclosure, which presumes that all information is accessible,” the ruling said.

It added that the economy ministry “made it more complicated” for the lawyers to access the documents by telling them to request the information via a system that dates from the 1966-1973 dictatorship. That system, which preexists the 2016 law on Access to Public Information, is “restrictive and bureaucratic,” CELS said in a press release.

The Herald reached out to the economy ministry for comment on whether they will appeal the decision, but has not received a reply at time of writing.

CELS said that “the economy ministry violated the law on Access to Public Information” and that “it also sought to hide the information with schemes to avoid handing it over to the court.”

“The court’s decision reaffirmed that the right to access public information is essential for the democratic control of state decisions,” especially in the case of “high-impact economic policy such as a new agreement with the IMF,” they added.