Thursday, March 28

The degradation of García Castellón: from persecuting Pinochet to becoming a judicial activist against Podemos

In the year 2000, jurists from all over the world met in Bangalore (India) at the invitation of the United Nations Center for International Crime Prevention, concerned about the lack of confidence in the justice of citizens who saw their systems as corrupt and biased. . The preamble to the Bangalore declaration stated that the “real source of judicial power is public confidence in the judicial system and in the moral authority and integrity of the judiciary”. In Spain, thanks to the actions of many judges, an important part of the progressive population has lost confidence in justice or views it with suspicion. The blame for this lies with judges like Manuel García Castellón.

In law there are two principles that function as guiding principles so that there is a credible relationship between citizens and public administration, which includes justice. One of them is the principle of legitimate expectations, by which the authorities in charge of imparting justice and individuals who have popular sovereignty must respect the commitments made and not disappoint the due trust that falls on their powers. Another of these principles is the principle of good faith, which according to Eduard Couture refers to “the legal quality of the conduct legally required to act honestly in the process, with the sincere conviction of being assisted by reason.” Two guiding principles of law that Judge Manuel García Castellón has forgotten in his procedural action against Podemos and make it impossible to have confidence in Spanish justice.

Time passes very quickly and they may no longer remember that Manuel García Castellón was the judge that Ignacio González wanted at the National Court. For this, he plotted with Eduardo Zaplana and was known thanks to intercepted conversations during Operation Lezo so that he would leave his position in special services, in which he had been a liaison judge for more than 17 years in France and Italy, and return to his position in the National audience. That square from where he has carried out a prospective and shameful persecution against everything that can be linked to Podemos.

In that conversation with Ignacio González, three movements were discussed: bringing Manuel García Castellón back to his position at the National Court and removing Eloy Velasco from the investigation by promoting him to the Appeals Chamber of the National Court and appointing Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor to Manuel Moix. Coincidentally those three movements occurred. For whatever it was. Fixed. Manuel García Castellón would then be the one to judge Púnica, Lezo, the “Villarejo Case” and Kitchen. He is also the one who would initiate such a coarse hunt against Podemos that higher authorities have had to put a stop to on several occasions.

Manuel García Castellón arrived at the National Court in 1993, after Baltasar Garzón signed for the PSOE, and among his most remembered cases before being appointed liaison judge in France is the administrative intervention in Atletico de Madrid, the first investigations into the investigation against Pinochet, the “Marey Case” of the GAL or the Banesto case against Mario Conde. What would that judge say of this in which he has become that even Manuel Vazquez Montalban He sent him a glowing praise: “Garzón and García Castellón reconstruct ethical common sense in the face of reason of State and worry existing or future torturers and murderers.” García Castellón was the head of Court 6 of the National High Court since its creation, in fact it was created after the fights that Manuel Garcia Castellón had as assistant to the head of number 3, Manuel Moreira. But the judge is another after returning from 17 years of work in France and Italy.

Manuel García Castellón targeted big game hunting seeking the indictment of Pablo Iglesias when he was Vice President of the Government. The case of Dina Bousselham’s SIM card was one of the most scandalous processes that have been seen in recent years and only the control of the PP of the General Council of the Judiciary has prevented this judge from being convicted of prevarication and removed from the race judicial. García Castellón’s maneuvers to overthrow the government were not carried out in secret. His objective was to obtain an accusation, even knowing that the accusation had few prospects of prospering, so that his presence in the government would become unsustainable. In the first place, the judge withdrew Pablo Iglesias from the case as a victim in a maneuver that pointed to him as being responsible for having invented a conspiracy to present himself as a victim and was censured by the criminal chamber of the National Court itself, rectifying the decision. of Garcia Castellón and restoring the condition of injured party to the then Vice President of the Government. But García Castellón was not going to stop and, without the support of the Prosecutor’s Office, he petitioned the Supreme Court to obtain an indictment that, by logical consequence, would remove Pablo Iglesias from the government. The accusation was so weak that the Supreme Court could not support it and responded that there was no indication, proof or mere suspicion that would allow Pablo Iglesias’ responsibility to be influenced in the facts that García Castellón imputed to him. The act of the judge was so scandalous that the Supreme Court itself accused him of not having carried out the necessary tests to know the facts before seeking the imputation of the then vice president.

At the height of the magistrate’s cynicism, Manuel García Castellón sent a letter to Carlos Lesmes asking for protection from the campaign of persecution and discredit that had been leveled against him for accusing him of mounting a political campaign outside the legal reality. As if there were no demonstrable legal facts that made it crystal clear that his actions were much more political than judicial. An opinion that anyone can have seeing the performance of the anti-podemos judge. The Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court warned García Castellón that he was exceeding the investigation of Podemos for illegal financing as a result of the statements of “Pollo” Carvajal. The deputy prosecutor of the National Court, Miguel Ángel Carballo, described the investigation of Manuel García Castellón as “extremely prospective”. That happened on June 22, but this week he has launched a new investigation against Juan Carlos Monedero based on the statements of former Chavista military officer Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal to avoid being extradited to the US. García Castellón has no limits and has shown it.

These days the file of one of the most infamous causes that are remembered has been known. The one about the nanny case, which this time did not have Manuel García Castellón as the protagonist, but which is a must when talking about the lawfare against we can Gara Santana and Teresa Arévalo had been charged with holding Irene Montero’s daughter in their arms. The “nanny case” they called it. Those who were advisers to Podemos were charged because they were accused of diverting public funds for having taken care of a friend’s daughter as advisers. It doesn’t matter if they said that they took care of their friend’s daughter by their own decision, because they wanted to, because she is her friend. The judicial hunt against Podemos reached the extreme of having two women accused of cradling a baby.

Because the problem is not just Manuel García Castellón. It is a problem of the first democratic order that judicial institutions are used for these political persecutions, given that it is a State power over which citizens have no control. There is nothing we can do to remove judges, elect others, or defend ourselves against their abuses. We are defenseless beings against the extrajudicial action of those who believe they are above good and evil, because only other judges can decide on their role and corporatism will make them always defend themselves when it comes to their abuses against political ideas different from those that are majority in the judicial career. In 2004, in the report to the 60th session of the Commission on Human Rights, the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Dr. Leandro Despouy, declared: “the lack of confidence in justice is a real poison for democracy […] In this context, the rules of judicial ethics are of paramount importance. As the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights underlines, judges must not only meet objective criteria of impartiality, but must also be seen to be impartial; The bottom line is the trust that the courts should inspire in people who resort to them in a democratic society”. There is no democratic system that can withstand a caste of arrogant people using their power in a sectarian way to decide what is good above justice. Manuel García Castellón once represented what justice emanates from his own name, it is sad to see him become an activist whose ultimate goal is to put his political ideas at the service of his toga.



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