¿JUSTICE IN SPAIN?

Spain’s Supreme Court has accepted the appeal submitted by the extreme-right-wing government-workers union Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) against the sentence that acquitted the former President of the Basque Parliament Juanmari Atutxa and the former members of the Chamber Gorka Knörr and Kontxi Bilbao from the disobedience offense of not dissolving the parliamentary group Sozialista Abertzaleak.

The Supreme Court has issued a sentence barring for two years the three members two years from the Chamber and ordering them to pay a fine within the first year. The appeal was submitted by the extreme-right-wing union Manos Limpias, that is not represented on any workplace and whose highest representative is the former leader of the extreme right-wing party Fuerza Nueva (New Force) Miguel Bernard.

Furthermore, today was also the first opportunity for the Supreme Court to decide about applying to other trials the so-called Botin Doctrine, through which the Supreme Court established that in trials processed as abbreviated proceedings, an oral proceeding could not be opened if it is requested only by the public prosecution and both the District Attorney and the potential victims (private prosecutor) believe that there is no crime and ask for a dismissal. This “Atutxa Case” fell under the same condition and both the defendants and the District Attorney have asked, without success, for this doctrine to be applied.

On this matter, the former president of the Parliament and former council to the Department of the Interior of the Basque Government underlined that with the judgement “the Supreme Court contradicts itself with respect to its December ruling on the Botin case,” when it agreed to acquit the banker because the only charge was from the public interest since the District Attorney and the private prosecutor renounced any liability. Atutxa also complained about the way he learned of the judgement: “I find it reproachable and despicable the fact that it was communicated through the media.”

“We’ll get from the European justice system what we have not gotten in Spain,” Gorka Knörr, said yesterday. He is condemned along with Atutxa and the member of the Parliament Kontxi Bilbao. Knörr, vice-president of the Chamber for EA when these events happened, added: “The European courts must say something, otherwise we see what is going on here.”

As it was said by the PNV, specifically Iñigo Urkullu, the sentence reflects “a medieval and pre-democracy justice” although personally I believe he could have gone further. The truth is that, as he correctly said, the sentence forecasts “grave consequences” in the ongoing trial against the Lehendakari for meeting with Batasuna, as he thought that the Supreme Court has become “a refuge and defense of the extreme-right ideas and groups.” Truly… SHAMEFUL.

Published by Iñigo Landa Larrazabal for Blog de Iñigo Landa
FW: foreign.news@thetimes.co.uk, letters@nytimes.com, cfrank@MiamiHerald.com,
foreigndesk@MiamiHerald.com,letters@latimes.com
Thanks to: Paco Gras, Dallas (USA)