Friday, March 29

Judge Alba asks the State to pay compensation for his three crimes


Judge Salvador Alba, suspended from his duties but pending expulsion from the judicial career, has requested through the Supreme Court that the Spanish State assume and therefore pay the 60,000 euros of compensation to those who have been convicted of three crimes: judicial prevarication, bribery and falsehood in public documents. He committed them, according to a final judgment of November 25, when he conspired to harm the professional and political career of Judge Victoria Rosell, current Government delegate against Gender Violence.

The Judicial Power initiates the file to expel Judge Alba

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Alba has presented to the high court an extraordinary incident of annulment of proceedings against the sentence that confirmed the one issued in 2019 by the TSJ of the Canary Islands, considering that her rights to effective judicial protection, to defense, as well as the that protect “the independence and exclusivity” of judges and magistrates.

To demand that the State assume the consequences of its crimes, Alba refers the Supreme Court to article 296 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary, which establishes that “damages and losses caused by judges and magistrates in the exercise of their functions will give rise, where appropriate, to the responsibility of the State due to judicial error or abnormal functioning of the Administration of Justice without, in any case, the injured parties being able to go directly against them. Alba considers that the State should have been a party to the procedure as civilly liable and, in the case of a conviction, as it has been, pay compensation and then claim it from the convicted person.

In an order by which the execution of the sentence was initiated, on January 12 the TSJ of the Canary Islands ordered the insurer Allianz, with whom the judge had contracted a civil liability policy, to deposit 85,000 euros in a judicial account, the amount that he secured in his day to face a possible sentence, which in this case has been 60,000 euros. Allianz has addressed the court to ask that before requiring her to comply with her guarantee, claim that amount from the convicted person.

In the 16-page letter with which Alba requests that the execution of her sentence be halted and, therefore, her imprisonment and the payment of the fine and compensation, the condemned judge accuses the Supreme Court of having violated her ” the jus in officium and the jus ad officium” enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. It is, as the convicted person explains in his brief, the right that he would have as a practicing magistrate to exercise his work as a magistrate independently and exclusively. To this end, it invokes article 117 of the Constitution, which says that judges and magistrates must be “independent, irremovable, responsible and subject only to the rule of law”, while establishing that they cannot “be separated, suspended, transferred or retired except for any of the causes and with guarantees provided by law. Alba has been firmly sentenced, among other penalties, to disqualification as a judge for the next 18 years.

Alba insists again before the Supreme Court that its Second Chamber did not take into account many of his allegations when he appealed the sentence of the TSJ of the Canary Islands that convicted him in September 2019. In total, Alba has presented three briefs after the conviction in order to prepare his amparo appeal before the Constitutional Court, according to his lawyers in this last appeal in which they request the annulment of the entire procedure. First, he requested a clarification of the sentence that the Supreme Court rejected as it considered that there was no place to do it; then he filed an appeal for reversal against a management procedure, and now an extraordinary incident of nullity of proceedings.

Meanwhile, the ten-day period given on January 12 by the court of the Canary Islands TSJ, which is in charge of executing his sentence, continues to run so that he can voluntarily enter prison. If that execution is not stopped, as he requests, and the term expires, a search and arrest warrant will be issued against him so that he is taken to jail by the public force.

Salvador Alba Mesa is already firmly sentenced to six and a half years in prison, 18 years of disqualification, a fine of 12,150 euros and compensation to Victoria Rosell of 60,000 euros for the commission of three crimes: judicial prevarication, bribery and false documents. The sentence considers it proven that the judge conspired to end the professional and political career of the also magistrate and thus benefit the then Minister of Industry José Manuel Soria, of the PP, who competed with her electorally.

The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) launched last Thursday the file to expel him from the race.



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