THE UNANIMOUS verdict of any supreme court in a democracy merits the utmost respect, but even under the best of circumstances judges can get things wrong – and these are not the best of times for the Spanish judiciary.
Last Thursday’s decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to disbar the controversial and charismatic investigating magistrate, Baltasar Garzón, from exercising his profession for 11 years has been severely criticised inside and outside Spain’s borders, but it has been praised as an exemplary exercise in the protection of individual liberty by the Spanish right.
For many observers, the very fact that three cases against Garzón are simultaneously before the court is itself an indication of a deep and disturbing malaise in this branch of the Spanish body politic. The most contentious of these cases deals with Garzón’s attempt to investigate crimes against humanity by Gen Francisco Franco and his supporters, both during and after their victory in the 1936-39 civil war.
He is accused of deliberately violating an amnesty that may cover these crimes. This has inevitably raised suspicions that the magistrate is really being pursued for his internationally recognised zeal in pursuing human rights abuses by right-wing dictatorships, rather than for abusing his own powers of investigation. Thursday’s sentence, however, is trenchant in its findings that Garzón, who has certainly cut some legal corners in the past, did indeed abuse his powers in a separate case. He had authorised phone taps on conversations between a group of suspects, who were in custody while he was investigating them for corruption, and their defence lawyers.
The Supreme Court held that his methods, which had been supported by the police and some of his colleagues, “arbitrarily and substantially restricted the right of defence of the suspects . . . without any minimally acceptable justification”. The fact that several of these suspects are members of the right-wing Partido Popular (PP), currently in government, adds fuel to speculation about the chronic politicisation of the judiciary, which cuts both ways. The verdict in the Franco case, which ended its public hearings only on Wednesday, is awaited with close attention by human rights groups and advocates of democracy across the world. At its heart lies the painful and deeply contentious question of whether Spain’s much lauded transition to democracy in the 1970s dealt honestly with a grim legacy, or simply buried it.