EX-JUDGE BALTASAR GARZON OF SPAIN FOUND GUILTY

(NewDesignWorld Press Center) - (Madrid) – The upcoming trial of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón for investigating abuses from Spain’s past threatens the concept of accountability in Spain and beyond, Human Rights Watch said today.

Garzón’s prosecution in a second case, for issuing a judicial instruction to intercept lawyer-client communications in a corruption scandal, raised questions as to whether the judge is facing retaliation for his actions in controversial cases.

“What bitter irony that Garzón is being prosecuted for trying to apply at home the same principles he so successfully promoted internationally,” said Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch. “Thirty-six years after Franco’s death, Spain is finally prosecuting someone in connection with the crimes of his dictatorship – the judge who sought to investigate those crimes.”

Garzón is scheduled to go on trial on January 24, 2012, for alleged criminal malfeasance (prevaricación) for investigating cases of illegal detention and enforced disappearances committed during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and the Spanish civil war, despite Spain's 1977 amnesty law for “political acts” (actos de intencionalidad política).

Garzón’s decision not to apply Spain’s amnesty is supported by international law, which imposes on states a duty to investigate the worst international crimes and which considers “disappearances” to be a continuing crime as long as the fate of the missing has not been clarified. Indeed, the justice cascade touched off by Garzón’s historic 1998 indictment against Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile for the murder and torture of thousands brought down amnesty laws around the world.

In the other trial, which was apparently brought forward to begin on January 17, Garzón is accused of criminal malfeasance and the violation of constitutional rights. It relates to the interception of the communications of detainees in a massive corruption scandal, known as the “Gürtel,” involving figures in the now-ruling Popular Party.

Garzón ordered wiretaps on the conversations with their lawyers of the detained alleged ringleaders, on the ground that they were using the lawyers to launder the proceeds of the scandal. One lawyer has been indicted for money laundering. However the recordings extended to conversations with other lawyers not involved in laundering the proceeds.

In both cases against Garzón, the state prosecutor has opposed the criminal proceedings, saying that no crime was committed, but the cases have proceeded as private prosecutions and were accepted for trial by the Supreme Court, which alone can try sitting judges. In the Franco-era case, the plaintiffs are two pro-Franco organizations. In “Gürtel,” they are the lawyers and detainees whose conversations were recorded.

Garzón was suspended from his duties in 2010 after the Franco-era case was set for trial.

The “Gürtel” case against Garzón was accepted for trial by the Supreme Court in February 2010, nine months after the Franco-era case, in May 2009. A recently-retired Supreme Court judge, among others, told Human Rights Watch that he believed that Garzón’s enemies in the judiciary leap-frogged “Gürtel” so that the more controversial Franco-era case against Garzón would be held in its shadow. El País said the Franco-era case became “strangely frozen” in time, a reference to the delay in bringing it to trial.

Human Rights Watch has not taken a position on whether the recordings were lawful or could be justified. But the extreme measure of a criminal prosecution, over other possible sanctions, did not appear warranted. Prosecutions of judges for prevaricación are almost unheard of in Spain, Human Rights Watch said.

United Nations special rapporteurs on the independence of judges and lawyers have held that judges should not be prosecuted for their judicial decisions absent the most exceptional circumstances and that “[i]n order to protect judges from unwarranted persecution…it [is] essential that judges also be granted some degree of criminal immunity.” These UN experts have concluded that “judges must not be removed from office because of errors in judicial decisions or because their decision has been overturned on appeal or review by a higher judicial body.”

“Absent clear and compelling circumstances, prosecuting a judge for his judicial acts undermines judicial independence,” Brody said. “Many undemocratic rulers would love to use criminal sanctions to silence judges whose work challenges vested interests.”

In addition to the Pinochet case, Garzón has taken up cases relating to abuses in a number of countries. Adolfo Scilingo, an Argentine naval officer charged by Garzón with the murder of political prisoners during the country’s military dictatorship, is serving a 30-year sentence in Spain. Garzón’s request to Mexico led to the extradition of Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, another former Argentine military official. Cavallo was extradited to Spain in 2003 and was eventually sent to Argentina to be tried by Argentine courts.

More recently, in April 2009, Garzón accepted a complaint filed by civil parties and initiated a criminal investigation into the alleged abuse of four Guantanamo detainees with ties to Spain. Diplomatic cables divulged by Wikileaks reveal that US officials privately and repeatedly attempted to influence Spanish prosecutors and government officials to curtail the investigations and to have them taken away from Garzón, considered by the US Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, Jr. to have an “anti‑American streak.”

Source: http://www.newdesignworld.com/press/story/474371

El juez, juzgado

Día 17.1.12

El titular del Juzgado Central de Instrucción número 5, Baltasar Garzón, suspendido cautelarmente en sus funciones desde mayo de 2010, se sentará mañana en el banquillo para encarar su primer juicio ante el Tribunal Supremo. Las acusaciones particulares piden que sea inhabilitado hasta un máximo de 17 años por intervenir conversaciones que los implicados en el caso Gürtel mantuvieron en prisión con sus letrados.

Este proceso, en el que la fiscal Pilar Fernández Valcarce no presenta cargos por no ver delito, es el primero que concluye en vista pública de los tres que el magistrado tiene abiertos en el alto tribunal. A finales de este mes tendrá que responder de una presunta prevaricación por investigar el franquismo careciendo de competencias y aún está por decidirse si se le abre juicio oral por unos cobros que habría presuntamente recibido del Banco del Santander y otras entidades por organizar unos cursos en la Universidad de Nueva York.

Las acusaciones las ejercen el abogado Ignacio Peláez (ex fiscal de la Audiencia Nacional y defensor del imputado en Gürtel José Luis Ulibarri), que pide que Garzón sea inhabilitado durante 10 años, y Francisco Correa y Pablo Crespo, que solicitan que dicha inhabilitación sea de 17 años.

Baltasar Garzón

La defensa del juez, que ejerce el también ex fiscal de la Audiencia Nacional Enrique Molina, intentó hasta el último momento evitar la celebración de una vista que, a su juicio, se desarrollará ante un tribunal que adolece de la imparcialidad necesaria.

El pasado martes, tanto el Supremo como el Constitucional dieron al traste con el último cartucho de que disponía la defensa de Garzón para retrasar el juicio. El primero rechazó a limine apartar del tribunal que juzga este caso al magistrado Luciano Varela (instructor de la causa contra Garzón por la Memoria Histórica), mientras que el Constitucional hizo lo propio con respecto a Manuel Marchena (instructor del asunto de los cobros de los cursos en Nueva York). Además de Marchena y Varela, la sala que debe juzgar a Garzón por supuestos delitos de prevaricación y contra los derechos constitucionales está integrado por Joaquín Giménez, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Miguel Colmenero, Francisco Monterde y Juan Manuel Berdugo.

Gran expectación. La celebración del primer juicio contra Garzón, conocido mundialmente por decisiones como la de pedir la detención del ex dictador chileno Augusto Pinochet durante su estancia en el Reino Unido o la de procesar a Bin Laden, ha despertado gran expectación mediática dentro y fuera de España.
Más de un centenar de periodistas procedentes de 40 medios de comunicación nacionales y de otros 30 extranjeros se han acreditado para cubrir el proceso. Por el momento, ha llegado prensa alemana, belga, francesa, holandesa, inglesa, italiana, la radio rumana y cuatro medios suizos. Entre los canales internacionales, además se encuentra la televisión árabe Al Yazira y es previsible que el número aumente hasta mañana.

Desde el otro lado del Atlántico, se han acreditado medios mexicanos y estadounidenses, entre ellos la agencia Associated Press, el diario Wall Street Journal, la cadena CNN y revista Newsweek. Estos dos últimos cubrirán también información para Iberoamérica.

Es previsible que el juicio se extienda a lo largo de tres sesiones, siempre dependiendo del propio desarrollo de las cuestiones previas, los testimonios, la prueba documental y los informes finales. Además, la primera jornada podría consumirse con la exposición de cuestiones previas por parte de la defensa de Baltasar Garzón.

Días más tarde, el juez se deberá enfrentar el 24 de enero al inicio del juicio por un delito de prevaricación por investigar presuntamente sin competencia los crímenes del franquismo, la causa es la que suscitará una mayor cobertura mediática.

Source: http://ecorepublicano.blogspot.com/2012/01/el-juez-juzgado.html