The Diplomat
The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee has ruled in favour of former judge Baltasar Garzón, concluding that the Supreme Court violated his right to the presumption of innocence and his right to a review of his conviction and sentence, when in 2012 it sentenced him to 11 years of disqualification for the crime of prevarication by ordering the wiretapping of the phones of lawyers of the main defendants in the ‘Gürtel case’.
In the opinion, advanced by eldiario.es, the Committee states that it cannot conclude that Garzón, in his interpretation of national legislation, constituted conduct or serious incompetence that could justify a criminal conviction that led him to definitively lose his position as head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 5 of the Audiencia Nacional.
The Committee considers that Garzón did not have “access to an independent and impartial tribunal in the proceedings against him in the Franquismo and Gürtel cases”. It considers that the Supreme Court’s conviction was “arbitrary and unpredictable as it was not based on sufficiently explicit, clear and precise provisions that accurately define the conduct prohibited” by the law.
According to the Views, “the State party is under an obligation (…) to expunge the author’s criminal record and to provide him with adequate compensation for the harm suffered”.
The Committee indicates that Spain “is also under an obligation to take measures to prevent similar violations in the future”.
Garzón told the newspaper El País yesterday, after learning of the Committee’s decision, that his conviction was “arbitrary” and he is calling for his criminal record to be expunged. He also announced that he will ask to be reinstated in the judiciary.
