Thursday, February 9, 2012

Corruption 5- Justice 0: the game in Spain


This country it's becoming a very sad joke. Today Spain has decided to favour corruption instead of justice, as simple as that. The first person condemned as a result of the Gürtel case, one of the biggest (if not the most) cases of corruption in Spain, has been Baltasar Garzón, the judge who tried to investigate it, who has been disbarred for 11 years (virtually ending his career, as he is now 57). If you didn't know, the corrupted, Francesc Camps and co., were absolved. Of course.

Yes, he ordered the wiretaps of the conversations between the advocates and their impisoned clients (the corrupted ones). I do understand that this fact is, in principle, illegal, and also in principle, a reason to harm the legimitate defense right of any accused. But these orders to intervene the conversations were endorsed by the anti-corruption prosecutor, by the judge Antonio Pedreira, who took the case when Garzón was inhibited, and by judge José Manuel Suárez Robledano. And they have not been charged of prevarication. Nobody, while the open case was being developed warned Garzón that the practice of the wiretaps was illegal.  Not to mention these wiretaps, among many other findings, revealed that advocates and corrupted (with some precious help from politicians from a party with the absolute majority in Spain) were trying to get away with it. With the money, of course.  

Not my words, but the ones from Reed Brody, international observer from Human Rights Watch, to  resume the situation: "The enemies of Garzon achieved their goal. Given the simultaneous accumulation of charges, there remains the fear that has been subject to retaliation for his role in several controversial cases." "Unless there sufficiently clear and compelling circumstances, to prosecute a judge for his prosecution threatens judicial independence. Many undemocratic rulers would not let pass the opportunity to apply criminal sanctions to silence judges whose work is opposed to vested interests." Seems I don't live in a democracy. Nobody told me that. Oh, and the reference about totalitarism on the sentece says it all. Couldn't be a more biased justice?

As Javier Alvarez, Professor of Criminal Law at the University Carlos III of Madrid adds: "This sentence should be valued as a triptych, the three trials in which the sole objective is Baltasar Garzon. Today, drug traffickers, terrorists and the extreme right are celebrating. The Supreme Court has convicted the judge who has given the most prestige to the Spanish courts. The Government can not accept a sentence like that, it must act now with measures of grace." I'm sure he won't do that. They are celebrating too.

I'm fearing the worst is yet to come. The trial for judging Francoism. The labour reform... Urdangarín.... SPAIN, WHAT A SHAMEFUL COUNTRY!

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