There Ain't No Justice Part 1

Time for a South of Watford mini-series on what is already promising to be a vintage year for the Spanish judicial system. I'm hoping that putting numbers on the instalments will give me sufficient impetus to follow up with the rest but there's no guarantee of that. It might just end up like one of those Spanish TV series that gets abruptly cancelled, or it could go on for ever. It's not like there's a shortage of material.

Let's start with the case of the man who we may yet have to refer to again as the Molt Honorable Francisco Camps. Acquitted yesterday by a Valencian jury of having accepted free gifts of clothing from the organisers of the Gürtel corruption ring, Camps has won what was an almighty gamble. Whilst two of his fellow accused previously declared themselves to be guilty as charged on the (ill judged) assumption that the Molt Unpredictable was going to do the same, Camps decided to bet on a jury trial getting him off the hook. 

His fellow defendant, Ricardo Costa, wisely didn't take Camps on his word and went to trial too with the result that he has also been acquitted. After a trial lasting several weeks, the nine member jury voted 5-4 for acquittal last night just in time to go off and watch the Barça-Madrid game. All of this in spite of extensive evidence having been presented of the relationship between Camps and the Gürtel ringleaders, and the evident attempts to manipulate crucial documentation in favour of the accused.

There are now many critical of the decision to leave the verdict in the hands of a jury, with claims that a more professional tribunal would never have acquitted the two men. I'm not convinced about this, after all I remember the example of judge De la Rua and with a post pending on the Spanish Supreme Court's continuing vendetta against Baltasar Garzón I'm not sure this is the moment for praising the detached professionalism of the judiciary. Juries can deliver seemingly perverse verdicts, but so can judges with decades of experience.

Perhaps, given the apparent willingness of voters in Valencia to vote for the corrupt, there could be a case for such trials to be held outside the area of influence of the politicians concerned. But then Spain's decentralized judicial system doesn't generally allow for that. We also have to take into account the separation of the case concerning the clothes from the much meatier part that concerns the possible illegal financing of the Partido Popular in Valencia via the Gürtel companies.

Ironically, the acquittal of Camps creates something of a headache for Mariano Rajoy. Having taken some tentative steps to begin a clean up of the festering swamp that the Valencian PP has become, he would send a terrible signal if Camps was to be restored as regional president. But the latter is still a member of the Valencian parliament. It's notable that there are no Valencian politicians in Rajoy's administration. Rajoy obviously has the power and patronage to put Camps in a cozy position where he can do little damage and that should probably be somewhere far from Valencia. Given that Esperanza Aguirre shows such little interest in being Spanish ambassador in Kazakhstan, perhaps a suitable position could yet be found for Mariano's old friend Paco Camps?

Will It Be Gürtel That Brings Garzón Down?

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón has been suspended from his position today by Spain's governing judicial body, the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ). I know what some of you are thinking, that you've read this somewhere before. Well even though it already happened once in May last year, he's been suspended again today as part of the continuing campaign against him by members of the Spanish Supreme Court.

This time the suspension is related to the Gürtel corruption case. One of the three separate cases against Garzón accuses him of acting illegally by ordering recording of the conversations between the main organisers of the Gürtel ring and their lawyers. Some, but not all, of these recordings have already been ruled illegal by a Madrid court; but the Supreme Court case is aimed at Garzón as the original investigating magistrate dealing with the case. The suspension is supposed to happen once the case reaches the point where a trial can be held.

The accusation in this case is following an already familiar pattern. All attempts by Garzón to call witnesses in his defence that back his legal interpretation have been systematically denied by the Supreme Court's judges. This has happened in the case against him for investigating Francoist crimes, and also in the other case involving payments for his sabbatical in New York which are alleged to have led him to act in favour of the interests of the Banco Santander. So the fact that the judge currently dealing with the Gürtel case, the state prosecutors, and one of the three judges who heard the Madrid case on the recordings, all agree that no crime was committed is not going to be allowed to influence the determination of the Supreme Court to put Garzón in the dock for this case too.

Let's rewind a bit and note that almost a year has passed now since the original decision to suspend Garzón over the Franco case. That frenzy of activity which occurred when Garzón applied for a transfer to the International Criminal Court has long died away following the original suspension and there is still no date set for a trial which was, in principle, ready to happen any day. There is a theory concerning the management by the Supreme Court of the cases against Garzón. It could be called a conspiracy theory, but the way events are shaping up it's worth taking seriously.

The argument is that the Supremo will try to take Garzón down using the Gürtel recordings case. They may have been ready with the Civil War case for almost a year but it places the court in a difficult position. The persecution of Garzón for investigating crimes which are covered by treaties which Spain has signed has attracted significant international attention. Even though it's probably this issue more than anything else which has motivated the "get Garzón" campaign, taking it to trial will leave Spanish justice with a dreadful image problem. Meanwhile the case concerning the Banco Santander is floundering badly, the investigating judge has only managed to keep it alive by turning it into a generic fishing exercise to see if he can find anything at all irregular in Garzón's earnings.

The case concerning Gürtel may offer the judges an easier route to get their man. With a court having already ruled out some of the recordings, they can try Garzón for having breached the principle of confidentiality between the accused and their lawyers without justification. Of course to do this they have to ignore all conflicting opinions and the evidence of involvement against some of the lawyers in laundering the proceeds of the the Gürtel ring. The key part of the theory is this: having obtained one conviction against Garzón, the judge loses his position and the protection this affords. The other cases then get shunted off to a lower court where they can be allowed to wither indefinitely in the department of forgotten prosecutions. Without, of course, ever being withdrawn. No recognition of judicial error will come from the Supreme Court.

It's just a theory at the moment, but the fact that the Gürtel prosecution seems to be the only one moving forward gives it some credence. Another side effect of such a development is that the Partido Popular will of course be delighted by a sentence that they can use to try and discredit a corruption case which continues to threaten prominent figures in the party. One of the great paradoxes of Gürtel has been that so far the only legal consequences have been formal prosecution of the investigating judge and a PSOE politician threatened with a prison sentence for raising a confidential police report in the Valencian parliament which had already been published in the press! The latter has already been acquitted, but the way things are going I wouldn't put much money at the moment on Garzón being so lucky.

Keeping Madrid's Atheists Off The Streets

A modest proposal by a trio of civic associations to hold an atheist procession in Madrid during Easter week has, perhaps not surprisingly, provoked a hugely over the top reaction. First off the mark was Madrid's ayuntamiento which called for the procession to be banned as a "provocation". Completely different, you understand, from a bunch of intimidating looking Catholics marching around all day dressed up as the Klan. Anyway, Madrid's rulers got their way as the national government's representative in the capital banned the event.

This ban, also not surprisingly, was not enough for some of the small but very vocal Christo-fascist organisations that yearn for the good old days when heretics were dealt with in a more summary fashion. Hazteoir submitted a judicial complaint accusing the atheists of genocide, whilst the christian lawyers association was keen not to be outdone and lodged an accusation of praising terrorism. I'm not inventing any of this and you have to remember at this point that Madrid's rulers called for the ban to be imposed in the name of "tolerance". I'll repeat that because I'm sure someone will think I missed some letters from the beginning of the word. "Tolerance".

Now in a sane judicial system Hazteoir and the christian lawyers would be told to organise their own procession taking them back onto the street and down to the nearest bar to drown their sorrows instead of wasting judicial time and money. However, in Spain there is a never ending stream of legal cases brought by ultra right-wing sects and grouplets because there appears to be an equally limitless supply of conservative judges who far prefer this sort of thing to any far fetched notions of dispensing justice to the average citizen. The judge in this case being the same one that happily keeps alive the hopes of those behind the 11-M conspiracy theories.

Sortu....Testing The Law That Bans Political Parties

A few people went to Spain's interior ministry today to register their new political party. The new party is called Sortu, and the reason why it is creating headlines is because it is seen as being a successor platform to Batasuna, ETA's political wing. The new organisation is an attempt to recover the political space that was occupied by Batasuna until its illegalisation under the controversial Ley de Partidos.

There is a difference this time, one which has to be seen in the context of ETA's ceasefire announcement. The new party has copied much of its constitution from other legal political parties, like the PSOE or the Basque PNV. In addition, Sortu's representatives have also explicitly rejected the use of violence to achieve their political aims, and have included a specific reference to ETA as part of this rejection.

All of this creates an interesting situation. The Ley de Partidos allows parties to be banned if they support violence or terrorism. On the basis of the constitution presented by Sortu there is no justification for illegalisation of the new party. Despite this it seems fairly likely that state prosecutors will call for Sortu to be banned, and therefore prevented from participating in the municipal elections in May.

The Partido Popular is openly in favour of illegalising the new party, regardless of what the law says. As far as they are concerned any movement that may lead towards an end to ETA's activities is a trick and the looney right were marching on the streets of Madrid again last Saturday; notionally in opposition to ETA although there was far more chanting against Zapatero and Rubalcaba. Zapatero has already commented ironically on how different the reaction would have been had the PP been in power.

In the end, if Sortu is not allowed to exist it will be a political decision rather than a legal one. The judges may say that the new party has failed to condemn ETA's past attacks, or to call for its immediate dissolution. All of which is true, but is not legal grounds for illegalising a party. This is the sort of situation where we could see just what a bad law the Ley de Partidos is, it was created to specifically prohibit Batasuna and permits a formal legal cover for decisions that have a purely political background.

I registered for an invitation for a new web site called Storify some time ago and had forgotten all about it until I got the invitation the other day. This site allows you to aggregate information from different sources about a topic and one of the issues I have decided to use to test it is the ETA ceasefire. It also allows you to embed the resulting story in another web page. I will continue to add new reports as I see them, what is shown here are a few that I collected yesterday and today.

The WikiLeaks Cables And Spain....Interfering With The Course Of Justice

It's not entirely satisfying, the way in which WikiLeaks have chosen to make their hoard of US diplomatic cables available. That a single newspaper should be controlling the release of the cables concerning Spain means that we are dependent on their timescales and priorities. We're not yet at the stage where crowdsourcing information has become part of the Spanish media scene, and El País is publishing information from the cables before any of the original documents are made available.

Nevertheless, there is some interesting stuff in the information that has so far been made available. The content of the released cables will come as something of a disappointment to those who faithfully believe in the independence of the judiciary. It seems that US diplomats in the Spanish capital have managed to cultivate some useful contacts inside the Spanish judicial system and have used these contacts to the full to try and get their way on any judicial process affecting US interests.

The most notable case in this respect has been that involving the death of Spanish television cameraman José Couso in Baghdad. Couso was killed by fire from a US army tank as the American troops advanced into Baghdad during the invasion if Iraq in April 2003. He was in a hotel full of journalists, and which the US army knew to be full of journalists. Not surprisingly the US investigation into the incident found that nothing wrong had been done, but a Spanish judicial investigation led to charges against 3 US soldiers.

The Spanish case is still going, which is nothing short of a miracle when you read the cables from the US embassy in Madrid and realise what forces are stacked against it. That the US government should oppose any attempt to prosecute its soldiers in another country is not news, but the cables reveal that the US has been able to count on key supporters both in Zapatero's administration and from the judicial system. The Spanish attorney general and one of the most senior prosecutors have had meetings with US diplomats where they assured the latter that they would do their best to kill off the Couso case. This could not be done too openly without causing a political storm, and the delightful phrase used in one of the cables is that they would find a way to "quietly terminate" the case.

The Couso case is not the only judicial process to have been affected by pressure from the US embassy. The threat of investigation over the Guantanamo prison camp and the flights run by the CIA has also had them talking to their friends in Spain. The cables published so far also provided an insight into the evolution of relations between the two countries, from the tense years when the US representative was a typical Bush political appointee to the smoother times under the Obama administration. Not that the change of government altered in any way the interference with Spain's judicial system.

It's interesting to note, given the timing of Interpol issuing a warrant for the arrest of the founder of Wikileaks, the attitude of the same organisation concerning the Couso case. Interpol have done all they can to wriggle out of getting involved in bringing the 3 accused soldiers before a court, citing a clause which doesn't allow them to become involved in political or military issues. Not that this clause prevented them, to pick one random example, from becoming heavily involved in the elaborate charade mounted around the death of FARC guerilla leader Raul Reyes. Still, I imagine their involvement in that case didn't count with the opposition of the US government.

Keep Quiet....Or Your Freedom Might Be In Danger

Things seemed to have gone very quiet concerning the judicial persecution of Baltasar Garzón by the Spanish Supreme Court. It was only to be expected that, following the frenzied activity provoked by his bid to leave Spain and work in the International Criminal Court, that the course of justice would resume the more leisurely pace normally expected of it. However, the end of summer has produced some new developments in two of the three cases brought against the exiled judge.

First of all came the rejection of Garzon's appeal against the conduct of the case against him concerning Franco's victims. Oddly enough, the appeal was heard by exactly the same panel of judges who intend to hear the main case when it comes to court. This highights an interesting factor in the whole situation, the persecution of Garzón is not necessarily being led by the Supreme Court as a whole, it is instead the action of a handful of judges who are seemingly determined to keep the case to themselves. This odd situation meant that the judges could not enter into the arguments presented by Garzón's lawyer for fear of jeopardising their right to hear the main case. So the appeal was dismissed without even being properly considered.

Another strange situation has surfaced in another of the cases against Garzón. This case is the one concerning the allegation that he favoured the Banco de Santander in a case after being sponsored by the same bank during his sabbatical period in New York. The judge investigating this case has clearly not found the evidence he is looking for to sustain the accusation. Faced with the somewhat humiliating prospect of having to drop the case, he has instead opted to get the Guardia Civil to trawl through all of Garzon's financial history in the hope that they come up with something. Its a bit of a desperate measure and very obviously a fishing exercise to try and find anything to bolster a faltering accusation. Garzón undoubtedly earns plenty of money and having his financial history opened to inspection in this way will be embarrassing, regardless of whether it brings up anything relevant to the case against him.

A couple of senior figures in the Supreme Court have recently issued renewed calls for criticism of the court's actions to stop. One senior judge even claimed that such criticism threatens democracy. The difficult relationship that always seems to exist between judges and freedom of expression continues to show itself. Perhaps it has something to do with their tradition? There could be a reasonable case, especially in these times when people who do the job they are supposed to do are having their salaries slashed, for deducting the salary of the judges for all the time they spend on settling scores with their enemies. But then in the situation concerning Garzón that might carry the risk of leaving the señorias without enough money to live on.

Just Because You're Dead Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You

It's been almost a week since I posted on judicial madness, so I think it must surely be time for another episode. The actor Pepe Rubianes intervened in 2007 in the debate concerning the so called "papeles de Salamanca"; the archives which were removed from Cataluña in the aftermath of Franco's victory in the civil war. Rubianes said some things about the mayor of Salamanca which were not very complimentary, the mayor was at the time leading a noisy campaign to retain the archives in Salamanca.

The issue reached the courts, and Rubianes was judged to have offended the good name and honour of the mayor when he called him an idiot and suggested that he should drown in his own shit. From the provincial courts of Salamanca, the case has now reached the Supreme Court which strangely no longer seems quite so busy since Baltasar Garzón was suspended. The court has ratified the sentence with a judgement that is curious for two reasons. One is that they suggest that Rubianes had no right to say what he did because he is not a politician, suggesting that only political professionals are entitled to insult each other. The other curiosity about the decision, and who am I to suggest it may have prejudiced the ability of Rubianes to present his case, is that the actor died over a year ago.

Garzón Chooses Exile Over Suspension

The judicial persecution of Baltasar Garzón is now reaching a crucial phase. The other day, Garzón played what may be his last card before facing trial accused of acting unjustly in his investigation of Franco's repression. With the failure of his, well-founded, challenge to the partiality of judge Luciano Varela, Garzón could see clearly that things were not going his way. So he unveiled a plan to seek a transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague where he would act as an advisor. Initially for a few months, with the possibility of a longer extension.

Garzón's intention was not to avoid trial through this move, the case against him does not depend on him continuing to work as a judge in Spain. It was however a pre-emptive move against what looks like being his almost certain suspension from his current post in the Audiencia Nacional. His challenge to Varela, after the latter assisted the far right group of Manos Limpias in preparing their accusation against Garzón, was dealt with very quickly and in a way which suggested that Garzón has no friends at all in the Spanish Supreme Court. A worthy contender for any award for judicial cynicism, the challenge was dismissed on the bizarre grounds that Varela's assistance to those who are out to get Garzón was guaranteeing the rights of the accused!

Then, once Garzón had announced his intention to seek the transfer to The Hague the wheels of justice suddenly started to move bewilderingly fast. Varela issued a whirlwind of decisions and documents including the formal "auto" which officially commits Garzón for trial. This, despite the fact that there are still appeals pending against Varela's decisions from Garzón himself and from state prosecutors who argue that the case has no foundation. It seems fairly clear that Garzón's enemies are determined to see him suspended and are now seeking to prevent him from getting the transfer by fast tracking the accusation against him. Once he is suspended of course, the pace of "justice" will be expected once again to leave most snails looking like boy racers.

So all eyes will now be on the specially convened meeting tomorrow of the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ). This meeting has to consider both the possible suspension of Garzón and his request for a transfer to the ICC; which has already been given the green light by Spain's foreign ministry. What they do will be the true test of the weight of Garzón's many enemies, some of whom occupy comfortable positions on the CGPJ itself. If they deny the transfer request it will be because they want to see him completely out of action, regardless of whether the accusations against him eventually succeed or not. Together with the equally pathetic spectacle created around the Constitutional Court over its verdict on Cataluña's Estatut, we can now say that the Supreme Court is seriously competing to be the most discredited judicial institution in the country. The judges don't seem to care much about that, they want their prey.

If One Fascist Group Should Accidentally Fall

The latest development in the case against Baltasar Garzón for his civil war investigation has been the exclusion of the fascist Falange from the case. For once the judge Luciano Varela got something more or less right when he described the Falange's documentation as mainly consisting of personal and political judgements that had no bearing on legal issues. Sadly, that's a verdict that could easily be applied to the entire case against Garzón, including Varela's own interventions. However, Varela did something very odd before dropping the Falange from the case. Instead of doing what judges would normally do in this situation, simply dismiss the case presented, he gave the fascists a day to adjust their documentation and advised them how to do it. Despite this irregular judicial assistance the Falange still wasn't able to do the job. Garzón's defence has promptly appealed against Varela's handling of this issue, claiming that it shows his lack of impartiality. At the same time the state prosecution service has also presented its arguments rejecting the case against Garzón. None of this is likely to prevent Varela from proceeding with his case, the Supreme Court judges seem determined to bring it to trial based solely on the accusations of the remaining plaintiffs. Despite the absence of the Falange, there are still two very right wing groups sitting on the wall.

Yesterday I attended the demonstration in Madrid organised in support of Garzón and justice for the victims of Franco's repression. It was a beautiful afternoon in Madrid and the route between Cibeles and the Puerta del Sol was a mass of republican flags, placards and photos of some of the victims. The march finished with speeches from various public figures including Pedro Almodóvar, Almudena Grandes and Reed Brody from Human Rights Watch. The speeches were followed by a dignified minute of silence in a packed Puerta del Sol. Below are some of the photos I took during the demonstration.

Contra La Impunidad

With all the attention being focused on the possible trial of Baltasar Garzón, it's easy to forget the issues that lie behind the campaign to defend the judge. The Supreme Court has postponed the issue of which courts are competent to deal with cases concerning Franco's victims until after they have dealt with Garzón. Saturday's protests in Madrid and many other Spanish cities (see the map below from Público) are a reminder of what is at stake.

View Manifestaciones contra la impunidad del franquismo in a larger map

La Mala Educación

The other night, on the same day as the now famous meeting in defence of Baltasar Garzón, I did something a bit foolish; possibly even dangerous for my health. Anticipating the reactions to the criticisms made of the Supreme Court and the process against Garzón, I did a bit of zapping between the several very right wing digital channels which Esperanza Aguirre has so generously licensed for the enjoyment of all Madrileños. I went from Intereconomia to Libertad Digital, passing through Popular TV and Veo without of course forgetting to visit the well established favourite of Telemadrid.

Because I'm quite fond of boasting to those who don't live in Madrid about having such a high number of loony channels to watch it's possible that some people think I do this quite often. In reality I hardly ever watch any of them, I don't watch much TV at all in Spain. The novelty value of these channels wears off really quickly. Unless you are one of those who still lives in a state of permanent outrage because the PP isn't running Spain there is little reason at all to stop by at any of them. Almost all of them run what could be laughingly described as "debates" every night, where a gaggle of the extremely loud right wing will use up hours of (cheap) television time to always arrive at the same conclusion; Zapatero is to blame for everything.

I did it the other night because I wanted to see just how far these tertulianos were prepared to go in exhibiting absolute, abject hypocrisy when it comes to the issue of criticising the judiciary. They lived up to my expectations fully, there they were shouting about how outrageous it was for the left to criticise the fine judges of the Supreme Court and how justice must be allowed to take its course in the case against Garzón. Intolerable, anti-democratic and "guerracivilista" were some of the more polite terms used to describe those who oppose the way in which the Supreme Court is acting.

At this point we need a little exercise in historical memory. As some of you know I have blogged a lot about the conspiracy theories concerning the Madrid bombings. To do this I had to go fishing in some very murky waters and to read a lot of the things that were being said on the sites that promoted those theories. So I remember very well the respect shown by these people to the judiciary and the forces of law and order. The insults directed against the judges and prosecutors involved in the Madrid bombings case would fill several volumes. These were not just political insults either. When the investigating magistrate had to take some time off because he was suffering from glaucoma, our friends on the right engaged in some of the most vitriolic personal abuse you can imagine.

But then perhaps this was just an isolated bunch of extremists? Certainly not isolated, with powerful support in the media, the PP and the judicial governing bodies. The problem is that when any attempt was made to get the Consejo General del Poder Judicial to speak up in defence of the judges and judicial process over the 11-M investigation, the conservative bloc on that body always blocked such initiatives. Quite similar to what has happened with the Gürtel case, where the PP hasn't hesitated to repeatedly accuse both police and judges of fabricating evidence. I'm no longer shocked by this hypocrisy, but this week we have enjoyed a special festival of it. This attitude that perceives liberty of expression to mean that they can say or do what they want, and that everybody else should just keep quiet. Just like the old days.

How Spain's Young Conservatives Keep Their Hands Clean

Until a few weeks ago I didn't know who Carlos Berzosa was. Maybe I'd seen the name at some point, but remembering who the rectors of Spanish universities were didn't find a space in my already overcrowded memory. Until a few students at Madrid's Complutense University decided to give their rector a hard time. Berzosa got shoved and shouted at over a proposal to end gender segregation in the university's residences, known as colegios mayores.

The opposition of the students to this measure puzzled many observers, who wondered whether the new generation was going to turn out to be more conservative than that of their parents - many of whom had done their best to circumvent the segregationist restrictions when they were students. Then the Comunidad de Madrid weighed into the argument, on the side of those who opposed mixed colegios. An argument broke out over the maintenance of the colegios with Aguirre's administration blaming Berzosa for not spending wisely, whilst the rector claimed that he didn't have sufficient funding and defended the autonomy of the university.

As a result of this Berzosa has found himself on the already lengthy list of enemies maintained by the Madrid PP and their media friends. Fast forward to Tuesday, when the meeting organised by trade unions in support of Baltasar Garzón was held on the premises of the Complutense, and with the presence of Berzosa. An attack on democracy is how the PP has described this meeting, obviously sensing a threat to their monopoly in recent years of character assassination of judges they don't like. Berzosa has been attacked for allowing it to happen on university premises and in recognition of his recent fame he now joins Garzón, Samuel Eto'o and the puppets of Los Lunnis in being on the receiving end of a legal action brought by Manos Limpias.

Now given that Manos Limpias is currently competing strongly with the Falange to be the favourite extreme right group for judges on the Supreme Court, there is every probability of yet another Spanish court being paralysed with this latest act of political revenge. Also included in the complaint made by the organisation is the former anti-corruption prosecutor Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, whose hard hitting speech in defence of Garzón yesterday has outraged the ultra right. It all goes to show that you don't have to do very much these days to get dragged before the judge

Yo Apoyo A Garzón / I Support Garzón

This post forms part of a simultaneous protest by bloggers against the judicial process that threatens to remove Baltasar Garzón from his position for having opened a case investigating the victims of Franco's repression. The growing campaign against this persecution of Garzón can also be followed on Twitter using the hash tag #apoyoagarzon.

This is not a situation where keeping quiet will help in any way. Garzón is accused of having knowingly exceeded his powers because he opened the lid on the circumstances that led to the death of tens of thousands of victims of Franco's dictatorship. Many of these victims still lie in unmarked graves scattered around Spain. Should he be removed from his position over this issue it will serve as a warning to the rest of the Spanish judiciary from those who seek to prohibit any attempt to come to terms with the past. Ironically, perhaps the Argentinian courts may take the issue further as a case is being presented in that country to investigate what the senior ranks of the Spanish judiciary seek to hide from view.

The way in which the case against Garzón is being handled by the investigating judge, Luciano Varela, is disgraceful. Varela accuses Garzón of having knowingly ignored the amnesty law passed in the 1970's and makes a whole series of unsubstantiated judgements about Garzon's intentions as well as attributing to Garzón judicial resolutions that were not even made by him. In the process of doing this he has committed a far more serious abuse of the judicial process than anything that Garzón could be accused of doing.

Varela systematically ignores international law on the issues affecting the (forcibly) disappeared and those who were subjected to other human rights abuses. Spain is a signatory of the major treaties on these issues and Varela is not entitled to ignore these treaties simply because it doesn't help his case. Additionally, he has rejected all requests by Garzon's lawyer to take testimony on the issues at the heart of the case. That means rejecting evidence from international experts and a point-blank refusal to consider the arguments of other Spanish judges who share Garzon's positions.

Such behaviour on the part of Varela makes it clear that the case against Garzón is not motivated by questions of law. Add to this the likely prospect that the court hearing the case will be headed by a judge who is a patron of the ultra right-wing DENAES (The Foundation for the Defence of the Spanish Nation). As if that isn't already enough, the accusing parties will be a collection of equally right-wing groups; including the fascist Falange. The stage is set for a dangerous judicial farce.

To find a parallel to this situation, you have to imagine a group of German Nazis being allowed to bring a case against a judge who had investigated the activities of Hitler's regime. The tribunal would be presided by someone who had sworn loyalty to that same Nazi regime. It wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen in Germany, but here in Spain that is the situation that is happening now with the case against Baltasar Garzón.

Egunkaria

On the face of it, it seems as if justice has worked as it should. Five directors of a Basque newspaper called Egunkaria were wrongly accused of being in the service of ETA, and today a Spanish court has absolved them of all charges. Surely no cause for complaint there, but when you look at the history of the case you come across something that can only be described as a massive and prolonged miscarriage of justice. Today Egunkaria makes headlines because of the verdict, but most of the long and sorry story of this case has been largely invisible, except to those who seek out information about it.

Egunkaria was originally founded in 1990, and was at that time the only newspaper that published entirely in the Basque language. Perhaps not surprisingly, the paper adopted positions that could be broadly identified with Basque nationalism, but not with support for ETA and terrorism. However, in 2001 a captain in the Spanish Guardia Civil presented a report to judge Baltasar Garzón claiming that documentation captured from ETA members could be interpreted to mean that Egunkaria had been set up to further the aims of the group. Garzón, who can legitimately be accused of overdoing it when it comes to tarring people as accomplices of terrorism, didn't bite on this particular hook and rejected the accusation.

That could, and should, have been the end of the matter. But the Guardia Civil officer persisted until he found a judge more receptive to his argument, and it was to be judge Juan del Olmo who took the decision to act and to close Egunkaria, claiming that it was created, financed and directed by ETA. We are now in 2003. Serious accusations of being terrorist accomplices were made against the directors of the newspaper. The years passed, and Del Olmo was unable to sustain a case proving the accusations used to close the paper. By 2006 the state prosecution service was already declaring that no evidence existed to substantiate the allegations of ETA support or control and called for the case to be shelved. Over three years ago.

Again, you might think that would spell the end of the process. But it continued, thanks above all to the fact that two of these ultra right-wing group who seem to make all the running in the Spanish legal system these days managed to keep the process going without the support of prosecutors. So finally, at the end of last year, the Egunkaria case came to trial with the accusation being presented by the Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo and another group called, quite inappropriately, Dignidad y Justicia. The trial sessions did not last very long, but it was carried out on the principle of having a morning of hearings and then adjourning until the following week. Then it has taken another three months for the verdict to be issued, perhaps just a detail when you consider the overall time frame we are dealing with.

The verdict today dismisses the charges against the accused. Despite the careful legal language and the general unwillingness for those inside the system to ever admit mistakes, it is quite a damning document. It states clearly that the groundless prosecution has been based on the idea that anything to do with the Basque language or culture must also have something to do with ETA. The trial judge, Javier Gómez Bermúdez, comes close to suggesting that Del Olmo acted illegally in closing the paper. He even, and this is probably a first from a Spanish judge hearing a case linked to ETA, doesn't dismiss the accusations of mistreatment and torture made by the accused following their arrest. Gómez Bermúdez is certainly no radical, he was the judge who presided over the Madrid bombings trial. For that he is already on the hitlist of some of the right wing media who supported the 11-M conspiracy theories. His latest decision will guarantee his position on that list.

So there we are, surely justice has prevailed? Well no, a perfectly legal newspaper was closed years before the case affecting it came to trial and several of its directors have spent those years living under the shadow of being accused as terrorist collaborators. The closure can never be compensated, and justice still has a long way to go to right this situation. One of the ironies of the trial was that the groups presenting this bogus accusation attempted to frighten the court by claiming that huge compensation would have to be paid if the accused were not found guilty. But what price do you put on them being denied the right for years to freely publish in their language of choice?

Garzón Could Be 14 Days From Suspension

"Los tratados internacionales válidamente celebrados, una vez publicados oficialmente en España, formarán parte del ordenamiento interno. Sus disposiciones solo podrán ser derogadas, modificadas o suspendidas en la forma prevista en los propios tratados o de acuerdo con las normas generales del Derecho Internacional”.

The word is that the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) will decide whether to suspend Baltasar Garzón from his position as a judge at their meeting due to be held on the 22nd April. This follows the confirmation that the case being prepared by Luciano Varela concerning Garzon's investigation of Franco's repression will proceed to trial. Unless something surprising happens in the next couple of weeks it seems very likely that Garzón will be removed from his post.

I'm not going to rehash here all the reasons behind the decision to allow a collection of ultra right wing groups to take revenge on Garzón, I've already done it before. I just can't help being curious about Varela's arguments. If he argues that Garzón should be put on trial for knowingly ignoring the amnesty law from 1977, then what should happen to those judges like Varela who equally knowingly ignore Spain's obligations under international law? It's a rhetorical question of course, I don't seriously expect either an answer or anything to happen. Oh, the quote at the top of the post? That's nothing important, just something I saw from a document called the Spanish Constitution.

The Poisoned Fruit Of The Gürtel Case

Madrid's judges did a big favour to those accused in the Gürtel corruption case last week. The decision to disallow as evidence all of the recordings made of conversations between suspects and their lawyers has even led to speculation about whether the case will proceed at all. The three judge court split 2:1 on the issue after failing to reach any sort of consensus. There was even a suspicion of illegal surveillance surrounding their own deliberations, at one point the police were ordered to check for eavesdropping devices in the court building after press reports appeared describing the disagreements between the judges.

On the face of it, the prosecution case shouldn't be in any danger as there is significant evidence that does not depend at all on the recordings that were made. This is the position being adopted by prosecutors in the aftermath of last week's decision. The problem is that the defence lawyers, who have already worked hard to slow down the preparation of the case, will now try to apply the poisonous fruit doctrine to much of the prosecution case. This doctrine consists of challenging any part of the accusation that can be linked in any way to the evidence that has been declared illegal. Whether they succeed or not, the longer they can delay prosecution the closer they get get to the dream objective of reaching the legal time limits on prosecution for at least some of the offences. Whilst of course allowing more time for the profits to be well hidden. We will see whether the investigating magistrate in Madrid now manages to untangle the rest of the case in time to meet his latest deadline for lifting the secrecy surrounding much of the prosecution case. Next Monday should be the big day.

It is of course important that protection exists for defendants conversations with their lawyers, otherwise the whole idea that prosecutors have to prove their case independently of the defence crumbles. On the other hand, this case raised the issue of what happens when the lawyers are potentially part of the group that can be accused? One of the lawyers concerned was visiting people in prison who he was not even representing. The Madrid decision soon started a trend, within hours the lawyer representing Jaume Matas - whose fate we will know more about tomorrow - was calling for recordings involving his client to be disregarded, even though Matas is not yet formally charged.

The PP has been seeking, sometimes openly and sometimes not, any kind of legal defect which will halt the Gürtel case. This worked for them on a previous occasion in the 1990's when they escaped serious accusations of illegal financing thanks to legal technicalities. They are helped in this instance by the fact that it was Baltasar Garzón who authorised the surveillance. In the current judicial climate you could get a legal case accepted against Garzón if it rains during your Easter holiday. It takes someone who is truly cynical, someone like Esperanza Aguirre, to suggest that the PP won't be satisfied until the Gürtel case runs its full course. Aguirre continues to receive the loyal votes of the three members of her parliamentary group in Madrid who face serious corruption accusations. Of course they are not formally part of the PP's group, and they don't participate in party activities. But they loyally turn up week after week just in time to vote....for the PP.

Three People Who Should Not Decide Garzón's Future

The attempt by sectors of the Spanish judiciary to end the career of Baltasar Garzón continues to advance. For the judges of the Supreme Court it wasn't enough that they had already admitted cases against Garzón from the extreme right and some lawyers with a grudge against the owner of the Banco Santander. Something more was needed, especially as the efforts to suggest Garzón was effectively bribed by the Santander to give some lectures in New York have not gone particularly well. Best not to involve foreigners at all, and so the willingness to admit any complaint against the judge now means that none other than Francisco Correa, the principal accused in the Gürtel corruption case, has been allowed to present a new one.

That Correa, who liked to be called Don Vito, should be allowed to join the Garzón witch hunt is an indication of the all comers welcome policy being employed when it comes to nailing Baltasar. Only ETA seem to have been left out of the chase for some reason. Moreover the latest development has caused great excitement within the Partido Popular as it offers the prospect of sympathetic, and overwhelmingly conservative, judges delivering what could be a fatal blow to the progress of Gürtel. The complaint against Garzón over Gürtel concerns the decision to intercept conversations between lawyers and some of the accused, an issue which is also being considered this week by the highest regional court in Madrid. If El País is to be believed the judges in that court are currently inclining towards declaring the interceptions to be illegal.

Such a verdict would seem to justify the action taken against Garzón but the situation is not so simple. The argument behind the interception of these conversations is that some of the lawyers are said to be involved with the accused, especially in the laundering of the proceeds. The legal situation is far from clear and the judge in Madrid who took over the investigation from where Garzón left it regards the interception as being legally justified. As with the case over the victims of Franco's repression, we are left with the curious situation of Garzón being accused of exceeding his powers whilst the other judges who agree with his positions are not accused of doing anything wrong. Such an inconsistent situation, together with the almost simultaneous admission of three separate cases against Garzón, supports the conclusion that what is happening is much more about the man than the details of the cases themselves.

Such a conclusion will of course be strenuously denied by all concerned. The president of the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ), the judicial governing body, has already spoken out against criticism of the Garzón case. The trouble is that when judges try to stop anyone else commenting on their actions it's almost always because such actions go beyond the run of the mill functioning of the judiciary. Sadly, the same people who now call for judicial independence to be respected did nothing in the face of the determined attempts to sabotage the trial of those accused of perpetrating the Madrid bombings, to name just one recent example. But then such selective criteria brings us to the heart of the problem, one that has been highlighted by Garzón himself in his attempt to prevent the CGPJ from suspending him before he has even been formally accused.

Garzón has challenged the right of three members of the CGPJ to sit in judgement of him, and in the process has spotlighted just how politicised that institution is. First off we have Fernando de Rosa, vice-president of the CGPJ and formerly in charge of justice in the Valencian administration led by Francisco Camps and his very fine suits. De Rosa held a well reported meeting with Camps just after Garzón accused the latter of receiving gifts from Don Vito and friends. After that meeting De Rosa issued a public warning to Garzón not to cross the "red line" in his Gürtel investigation. In other words, the very model of judicial independence. De Rosa has wisely decided to abstain from the meeting that will decide Garzón's future, but he has done so in a way which avoided discussion of the reasons why he should not be present.

Secondly we have Margarita Robles, and here we start to get an understanding of the alliance of convenience between the right wing defenders of the nation on the Supreme Court and some others more commonly associated with the left. Robles served in the administration of Felipe Gonzalez at the same time as Garzón during his very brief political career. In what could be considered his greatest error, Garzón fell into the trap laid by Gonzalez in an attempt to stop the judicial investigation of the GAL case involving government support for a dirty war against ETA. Finally realizing that he was not being offered what he hoped for, Garzón subsequently resumed his career as a judge and took up the GAL case with renewed enthusiasm. This made him many enemies in the Gonzalez administration at the same time as it made him a hero for the Partido Popular and the right-wing press. How times change, but Robles is said to be a close ally of Luciano Varela, who is preparing the case against Garzón for the Supreme Court. Robles has also decided to abstain following the challenge, having been the main mover in favour of immediate suspension for the judge.

Last but by no means least we have judge Gemma Gallego, who has rejected any suggestion that she should not decide on the issue of Garzón keeping his job. Judge Gallego is known above all for being the judge who launched that most ridiculous of judicial processes, the infamous "boric acid" case. She had several senior police officers facing a potential prison sentence over what was nothing more than a set up devised by El Mundo and other supporters of the conspiracy theories over the Madrid bombings. The case, if it deserves such a title, was resoundingly rejected by Garzón who saw through it. But the conspiracy theorists manoeuvred to get it into the hands of Gallego, who did her political duty and got her political reward. It's arguable, after such actions, whether she was fit to continue as a judge at all; but here she is deciding the futures of others on the supreme governing body of the Spanish judiciary. I rest my case your honour.

Garzón's Enemies Sharpen Their Knives

The case against judge Baltasar Garzón over his decision to investigate crimes committed by Franco's regime has moved closer to seeing Garzón suspended from his duties as a judge. Such a suspension would just be the precursor of the judge being put on trial charged with perverting the course of justice. The judicial governing body in Spain, the Consejo General del Poder Judicial, has passed the buck onto prosecutors over whether Garzón should be suspended now, but it seems that the prosecutors are not up for the job. Normally a judge cannot be suspended until a firm accusation has been made and the case is set for trial.

There seems little doubt at the moment that Garzón will end up in court, the investigating judge in the Supreme Court has rejected his last appeal and it looks like the case will end up in the hands of the same court that accepted the original accusation from the far right Manos Limpias. The investigating judge claims that Garzón deliberately disregarded the amnesty law that was passed in 1977 in order to proceed with his investigation. This is a law that the United Nations has previously asked Spain to repeal because it contravenes international conventions signed by the Spanish government.

It wouldn't be fair to say that all of those who are out to get Garzón are just from the political right. The judge who has prepared the case against him for the Supreme Court has always been associated with the more progressive current of the judiciary. What does seem to be the case, though, is that Garzon's decision to open the civil war case has created an alliance of convenience between the most conservative sections of the judiciary and his other enemies, of which he seems to have plenty. The case is being handled in a manifestly unjust way, whilst a fine collection of extreme right wing groups has been assembled to support the accusation, representatives of the victims of Franco's regime are denied the possibility of participating.

At the same time another case claiming that Garzón unjustly favoured the president of the Banco de Santander has been revived even though it's already been previously rejected as unfounded by the Supreme Court. It looks very much a case of trying one thing, and if that fails then going with another. It's going to offer a tremendous image of the Spanish judicial system if Garzón goes to trial. Whilst other countries (of which Brazil is just the latest) deal with those who committed the crimes, in Spain it will be the judge who tried to investigate them that gets put on trial....with the accusation against him presented by those who still carry the standard for the dictatorship. It's a bit of a cliche to say "Spain is different", but in this case?

The Right To Inform In Danger

If the examples I gave the other day of judicial craziness weren't satisfying enough, then try this one for size. Two journalists from the Cadena SER radio station are currently facing a prison sentence of 21 months. What did they do to deserve such a stiff punishment? They published a report on the very abrupt rise in membership of the Partido Popular in the Madrid locality of Villaviciosa de Odón. The PP in this town was in the midst of an electoral process and the journalists reported that no fewer than 78 people suddenly joined the party, many of them giving the same address.

The original complaint about this suspicious rise in PP membership came from within the party itself, but the regional leadership did nothing about it. Why would they, if they do nothing about far more serious issues? The suspicion was that there was a connection between the new members and local construction interests, something which is unlikely to cause much surprise. Although the PP did nothing about the case, the two journalists from the Cadena SER ended up in court charged with revelation of secrets.

Under normal circumstances you would imagine that the journalists would be amply covered by the right, enjoying constitutional protection, to inform. However, the Madrid judge hearing the case decided that this protection didn't apply in this case....because the story was published on internet! The web, according to the creative judge, is not a medium of information like the printed press, TV or radio. Understandably, the sentence has provoked significant protests, not least because of its implications for all those who inform via internet. Even some senior PP politicians have agreed that sending the journalists to prison is perhaps not appropriate.

There has to be an exception to this consensus, so step forward Esperanza Aguirre. The Lideresa, who amazingly has yet to appear in this blog in 2010, declared that the sentence was fully justified because the journalists had revealed sensitive personal data about PP members. This was Aguirre playing typically fast and loose with the the truth but we shouldn't be surprised. Those who are suspected of being involved in the Villaviciosa affair are also linked to the still unclarified "Tamayazo", the scandal surrounding the defection of PSOE representatives that paved the way for Aguirre to come to office in the first place.

Another Great Year For Judicial Madness

If we need proof that things don't really change just because the calendar shows a new year, we have as evidence the Spanish Supreme Court. Today this institution was busy dealing with one of the multitude of cases brought by right wing fringe groups whose main objective seems to be to bring an already frail judicial system to a complete halt. The case in question involved the ongoing attempt to prosecute the current Basque president, Patxi Lopez, and his predecessor Juan Jose Ibarretxe for having talked to ETA's political wing during the failed peace process in the region a couple of years ago.

Some sanity prevailed, and the Supreme Court decided that talking to Batasuna as part of an attempt to bring an end to terrorism doesn't constitute a crime. However they did it in a way which suggested that it was right to bring the case against the politicians involved and therefore justifiable that the Supreme Court should rule on such matters. This court has developed a habit of setting precedents which suit its convenience in cases with a political impact. They have what we could call the bankers doctrine which set free the president of Banco Santander when the state prosecutors refused to present a case and there were no individuals directly affected. When the same circumstances have applied to politicians they have reversed this doctrine and allowed cases presented purely for political motives to proceed even though prosecutors argue there is no case to answer.

When a similar attempt was made to prosecute Zapatero for the same "offence" concerning the Basque peace process the court delivered a very sensible ruling that said that the separation of powers doesn't permit judges to assume powers that rightly belong to democratically elected institutions, and that the attempt to negotiate an end to ETA's terrorism belonged to the political sphere. It seems that the same court has now decided that the decision belongs to them instead.

In a similar vein we have the equally crazy case against Baltasar Garzón for having the temerity to open an investigation into the victims of Franco's regime. This act of judicial revenge against Garzón is not only still open but from today it has a new player invited on board - none other than the fascist Falange have been allowed to join the other equally ultra right wing groups that presented the original case against the judge. Garzon's lawyer has been quick off the mark in asking how likely it would be for a German court to permit a neo-nazi group to bring a case against a judge who dared to investigate Nazi crimes. Spain is different on this issue and the judges say the past must stay buried. Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this case is that it allows all of these organisations to have access to the data on victims that formed part of Garzon's investigation. So fascist organisations can be handed the personal details on those relatives of Franco's victims who have presented claims. Doesn't sound like justice to me.