On February 9, 2012, the Supreme Court of Spain, 7-0, convicted Judge Baltasar Garzon of prevarication (knowingly making an unjust decision) in the case involving his authorization of police bugging of communications between individuals charged with corruption and their attorneys. Judge Garzon was sentenced to removal from the bench for 11 years and a fine of Euros 2,500. According to El Pais, there is no right of appeal from this decision.
The prior day, February 8, saw the end of the trial of the criminal case against Garzon arising out of his opening a criminal investigation into human rights violations by the Franco-regime. A decision in this case is expected within four weeks. On the last day, Garzon told the court that he opened the underlying case “in deense of the victims so that they would not be forgotten.” A lawyer for one of the private groups that brought this case against Garzon argued that Garzon had demonstrated bias favoring the Republican side of the Civil War when he used the Spanish amnesty law as the basis for dismissing a case against a Republican leader over a massacre of Franco supporters in that War.
These two cases were discussed in my February 7, 2012 post.
Tags: Baltasar Garzon, Generalisimo Franco, human rights, Spain, Spanish Civil War
February 11, 2012 at 3:44 pm |
[...] prior post reported that on February 9th the Supreme Court of Spain, 7-0, convicted Judge Baltasar Garzon of [...]
February 14, 2012 at 4:02 am |
[...] of the victims.” The decision in that case is still to come. On February 9th, Judge Garzon was convicted of the charges involving his approval of wire-tapping attorney-client communications. On February [...]
May 26, 2012 at 9:41 am |
[...] prior post discussed former Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon’s conviction and suspension for bugging of [...]