For more than sixteen years -on October 16- the magistrate of the constitutional Courtwho is considered the natural candidate of a progressive majority to preside over the guarantee court, is the subject of a campaign that repeats, almost without variations, a phrase he pronounced in 2006, when he was State Attorney General of the Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Founding member in 1984 of the professional association Judges for Democracy, a split from the conservative APM (Professional Association of the Magistracy), Count-Pumpido attended the XXI Congress of the aforementioned association on June 9 in Vitoria (Álava), whose central debate was called Dialogue, Justice and Peace. Three months earlier, the terrorist group ETA had announced a “permanent ceasefire”, which was preceded by almost three years without fatalities, since May 2003.
There, the State Attorney General, who did not participate in the debate, delivered a closing speech.
“I think we should congratulate ourselves because Judges for Democracy is able, once again, to affirm forcefully that between social reality and the flight of our robes there is no divorce or abstraction possible. The judges are within that reality, they are part of it, and they cannot stare into space, invoking the immaculate distance of their independence. That independence, like impartiality of the Public Prosecutor which I now represent, are essential values for the functioning of our constitutional system, not designed so that judges and prosecutors can live and act as if reality did not exist, but, quite the contrary, to ensure that they face each other free of any ballast and oblivious to any task other than to apply the law. The law, that is, the fruit of the popular will & rdquor ;, he pointed out.
And he launched an exhortation: “Applying the law in the fight against terrorism, which has not ceased, nor will it cease. Apply the law to protect and ensure the rights of victims. Seeking reparation, as far as possible, for the crime they have suffered, preserving the memory and respecting the dignity of those who have unjustly paid a useless price for the freedom of all, but also, and with the same determination, working to that there are no other victims in the future, so that no one else has to pay that price& rdquor ;.
These words led to Popular Parliamentary Group in the Senate to request their appearance “to report their statements regarding the role that, in their opinion, the Judiciary should play before the”ETA permanent trucewhich took place in the justice commission on the afternoon of October 16, 2006.
The State Attorney General explained that what he had expressed about the role of the Prosecutor’s Office was worth “with a ceasefire, or without a ceasefire & rdquor ;. And then he provided a few facts.
The numbers
Between March 22, 2006, the date of the declaration of the permanent ceasefire, the Public Prosecutor charged 56 members of the terrorist group in court and obtained 49 convictions. During 2006, until October of that year, the National Court Prosecutor’s Office had formulated 66 indictments, against 39 in 2005, that is, before the ceasefire, exceeding the number of accusations between January and October, therefore, in almost 70% the total of those presented in 2005. Another piece of information of interest: 45 indictments of the 66 filed by the Prosecutor of the National Court against 82 defendants took place after March 22, 2006, that is, after of the ceasefire. Likewise, there had not been a single approach of prisoners to the Basque Country in the indicated period and only one case of granting a third degree and probation to an individual had been reported. sentenced for collaboration with an armed gang, who suffered from a serious illness (in compliance with article 92 of the Penal Code). The Prosecutor of the National Court reported in favor of extending the sentence of those convicted, according to the parot doctrinejudgment of the Supreme Court.
All in all, Conde-Pumpido tried to broaden his idea of justice at a time marked by the offensive of terrorism on an international scale.
“The irrational imprint of terrorism has permeated some defense reactions that, paradoxically, rather than consolidate and protect the freedoms of citizens, would seem destined to indirectly satisfy the objectives of the terrorists themselves & rdquor ;.
Why?
“Converting our societies into cages full of beings treated as suspects or subjects outside of growing limitations on rights is worth as much as giving terrorists the objective of destroying our values that they pursue with their activity& rdquor ;.
And he added: “Falsely transmitting to citizens the idea that judges and prosecutors, more than guarantors of the law, are mere executors or instruments of government and opposition, dedicated to doing what is convenient for the current situation, constitutes an error and irresponsibility that is paid for, precisely, with the bankruptcy of the very system that it claims to want to defend. Applying the law in a democracy is more difficult than blindly beating down, indiscriminately, the ranks of a broadly defined enemy, through suspicions and judgments of intentions, by politicians, editorialists or power groups of one kind or another, as appropriate to the interests of each person at all times. Being a judge or a prosecutor, and standing firm against the temptation of succumbing to flattery or surviving the effort of not breaking under pressure, is not easy.”
Perhaps this allusion acted as a backdrop for the anger that, however, would unleash one of the last sentences of his appearance.
“I have tried and I will continue trying to ensure that the law is rigorously applied because it is the materialization of democratic values. But also precisely for this reason, the flight of the prosecutors’ robes will not avoid contact with the dust of the road. Our approach to social reality must be impartial. But not oblivious to that reality, but deeply committed to its transformation, in accordance with the objectives of legal security, democracy and social peace established by the Constitution and specified by law& rdquor;.
16 years later
The flight of the robes and their contact with the dust of the road -a mixture of two poems by Antonio and Manuel Machado- pursues him like the lost shadow Peter Pansixteen years later.
And, look where, the Second Chamber has ordered yesterday to repeat for apparent lack of impartiality the trial against the Board of Parliament for 1-0.
The defense of structural impartiality, so to speak, was raised by Conde-Pumpido in his proposal for president of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, in 2014, when he was the conservative majority of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) opted for Manuel Marchena.
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One of its flagship initiatives was to make the Supreme Court’s Appeals Chamber fully rotate. The president of the Second Chamber should not permanently integrate a certain section, in the same way that, in the distribution of all other matters, the president, who is primus inter pares, should rotate with the rest of the magistrates also in the Chamber of Admission to those who correspond by turn. With this system, the president, since he is not always in the Admission Room, could leave in the Trial Room. The Admission Room would be completely rotating.
Precisely, three years later, on the occasion of the ‘procés’ in 2017, four magistrates out of the five of the Supreme Court Admission Chamber admitted the complaint by the State Attorney General, Jose Manuel Maza, and later they integrated the majority of the trial court. The president of the Court and rapporteur of the sentence was the magistrate Manuel Marchena.