An appeals court Tuesday backed President Cristina Kirchner's plan to use 4.38 billion dollars from central bank reserves to repay the country's bondholders in part, court officials said. The appellate ruling overturned a lower court decision that had blocked the government from tapping central bank reserves amid a huge political row. Earlier in March, a lower court barred the government from using 4.38 billion dollars for payments to bondholders. But a separate decree allowing the government to repay international lenders with 2.18 billion dollars was upheld as legal. The Argentine leader has been trying to use the central bank reserves to pay off a hefty chunk of the debt due this year to Argentina's international lenders and holders of bonds on which the country defaulted in 2001. An earlier proposal faced opposition from then-central bank chief Martin Redrado, who was subsequently sacked by the president, sparking a major political and court row. Kirchner has clashed with lawmakers over which funds can be used to service sovereign debt. She has tried to use central bank funds to do so despite staunch opposition from many in Congress as well as in the courts. Kirchner, who is trying to restore Argentina's standing in international credit markets and with multilateral lenders to avoid punitive interest rates, has defended the strategy as the country's soundest option. Argentina has an estimated 15 billion dollars in debt payments due this year and is seeking to carry out a swap for approximately 20 billion dollars in bonds. 