It’s not a football match and we’re not hooligans.
The courts have the constitutional function of judging, of applying the law, beyond pressure, media noise and parallel trials. And so they do, abstracting from everything that surrounds them to evaluate the specific case and resolve based on the evidence, direct or indicative, acquitting or condemning the accused.
Sometimes, resolutions are adopted unanimously and other times only by majority, with the concurrence of votes against, individual votes, of the dissenting magistrate(s). So far, nothing extraordinary.
The sentences can be appealed by the parties if their foundations are not shared before a higher court.. And so it is reviewed, where appropriate, whether the evidence performed is valid, whether the assessment of the evidence performed is correct and the legal fit of the facts that are understood to be proven is correct.
As an exception, this review of the sentence is not possible when it is the Supreme Court that judges the defendant with jurisdiction due to the position he holds. Because the Supreme Court is the highest court.
In that case, for greater guarantee, there are seven magistrates who prosecute, instead of three.
“It is necessary to reflect on the need to maintain impartiality and technical rigor, and convey to citizens confidence in their judges. If not, we run the risk of fueling populism with biased parallel trials until delegitimizing the institutions”
It is good to explain all of the above. Make it known to citizens, to contextualize the complaints and interested laments of some.
Last Thursday we only learned the progress of the sentence imposed on Alvaro Garcia Ortiz. We do not yet know what the Court bases this on. However, there are those who claim that this is a case of lawfare. From a political sentence.
If it is already difficult to understand a criticism of this nature when the integrity of the resolution is unknown, it is even more difficult to understand those who, due to their status as a high government official or because of their profession as a prosecutor or judge, cry out against what they do not know, criticize the magistrates and point fingers at them.
It is irrelevant to them that some of those same magistrates, from that same Supreme Court, had condemned, for example, PP politicians, in the Gürtel case.
So they were good judges and today they are no longer good judges?
It is necessary to reflect on the need to maintain impartiality and technical rigor, and convey to citizens confidence in their judges.
If we do not do it this way, we run the risk of feeding populism with parallel biased judgments until we delegitimize the institutions.
And all this effort for what? I prefer not to imagine it.
Democracy does not suffer because a sentence is handed down that, like all sentences, may be debatable. And, in any case, it is appealable.
Democracy suffers when a sentence that is not yet known is politically criticized, simply because it does not coincide with the verdict previously dictated by political power or a certain media ecosystem.
We cannot fall into the irresponsibility of questioning the entire Justice system. Because, after that, what will we have left?
Let’s restore sanity.
*** Cristina Dexeus is president of the Association of Prosecutors (AF).