The reform of the Organic Law of Judicial Power, the People Group intends to pursue through a bill filed Monday in the congressional record, has one goal barely disguised: archive soon the case against the dome Chinese Communist Party in the National Court for genocide in Tibet and avoid a diplomatic row with Beijing.
However, this initiative, which cut via backroom urgency and the principle of universal justice, will have a serious side effect: to shelve a dozen ongoing investigations in the last decade by Spanish judges on cases as diverse as the death of Telecinco cameraman José Couso, the CIA flights or torture at Guantanamo Bay. So I fear lawyers involved in these procedures and defenders of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International.
Under this reform, the Spanish judges will only be competent to investigate crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity or against the laws of war when " the procedure is directed against a Spanish or against a foreign citizen who is habitually resident in Spain or are found in Spain whose extradition has been denied by the Spanish authorities. "
Those directly responsible for the death of Couso were the U.S. military who manned the chariot that on April 8, 2003, opened fire on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where journalists were staying. The Pentagon has ignored requirements to judge Santiago Pedraz both these military and their superiors, are arrested and interrogated.
At the same order is doomed investigation of torture in Guantanamo prison camp. The proposal of the PP not only requires that " the victim was of Spanish nationality at the time of the commission of the offense " -requisite to fulfill one of the complainants, the Ceuta - Hamed Abderrahman but also that " the person who impute the crime " is in Spain, which does not happen with the military commanders who led the illegal prison created by the U.S. in Cuba.
In the case of CIA flights no Spanish victim, but an alleged transit Spanish (Palma de Mallorca) territory of the plane he was transported a European citizen (German Khaled El Masri) object unlawful detention.
These three processes have in common their origin in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the fact that Washington not only has not worked with the Spanish justice but to pressure policy makers to get your file, as evidenced filtration cables the U.S. Embassy in Madrid through Wikileaks.
But they are not alone. The persecution of Falun Gong in China, Guatemala or the genocides in Rwanda, the killing of Spanish priest Ignacio Ellacurfa in El Salvador and seven other people in the Central American University in El Salvador in 1989 or Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, killed in Chile by agents of Pinochet in 1976 and the disappearance of hundreds of Sahrawi activists after entry of the Moroccan army in the former Spanish colony swell the list of crimes that may be unclear. Under the new requirements, the process by former Minister of Interior Carlos Vielman Guatemalan, Spanish citizen and accused of extrajudicial killings in the country, is probably the only one who would still be alive.
In 2009, PSOE and PP and they agreed a first cut of universal jurisdiction after Israel protested the allocation of responsibility for a bombing in Gaza, but that reform yet in force, retained the ability to act in cases that he had " some link of relevant connection with Spain." For this gap, now wants to blind the defenders of universal jurisdiction slipped.
The PP claims, inter alia, the need to adapt Spanish legislation to the " commitments under Spain 's ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court", but most open procedures in the High Court involving countries that as China and the U.S., do not recognize this court.
One of the most shocking aspects of the reform is the different treatment of victims depending on the offense. While any Spanish suffered a terrorist attack abroad has guaranteed the protection of Spanish judges should not get in the country where the crime occurred; torture victims must prove that they were " Spanish nationality at the time of commission the facts "and that his alleged torturer is found in Spain.
The method chosen to approve the reform - through a bill allowing circumvent the report request to the State Council or the General Council of the Judiciary, allow this into effect with the utmost urgency, in about two months.
At that time, the High Court shall file all such cases then, the PP claims, " courts can not continue proceedings on those already devoid of jurisdiction". But the courts will not even consider whether or not lack of competition, as a transitional arrangement determines that all cases "shall be dismissed until the fulfillment of the [ new ] requirements are not credited." From the outset, I shelved. Then we'll see.
Tags: Express, Justice, legal, PP, reform, shelve, universal