A major controversy is swirling in Spain where Baltasar Garzon, a judge who has been involved in some high profile and controversial cases and who has gotten a lot of international attention, is accused of basically ignoring a 1977 amnesty law. Radio Netherlands gives the best summary of the issue:
The authorities in Spain have begun the process to suspend the well-known investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzón. The main reason for the move is his investigation into the fate of 114,000 people who disappeared without trace during and after the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
The public prosecutor’s office says Mr Garzón had no right to conduct the investigation because of an amnesty law introduced in Spain in 1977. But Mr Garzón says the disappearances must be considered crimes against humanity and, therefore, not covered by any amnesty.
The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial, defends the judge:
… Garzon denies wrongdoing; the disappearances, he says, were crimes against humanity and, therefore, cannot be covered by an amnesty.
We admire Garzon for a lifetime of pursuing criminals without regard to ideology or political bent, often at great personal risk. We also recognize that his outsized ego and appetite for attention have antagonized colleagues and politicians. Though we are in no position to judge the legal challenge against him, we worry about politicization of the Spanish legal system with this divisive case, and the haste with which events are unfolding: An administrative panel is considering Garzon’s suspension even before judges decide whether to allow charges to be filed.
We sincerely hope that the Spanish courts will put aside personal animosities and political vendettas, and that Garzon’s enemies will not use this case to bring down a judge they dislike. Love him or hate him, he deserves a fair hearing. And a democratic Spain deserves an upstanding judiciary.
Case closed? Hardly.
Jose M. Guardia, writing in his must-read, always informative blog Barcepundit (which he has in Spanish and English versions) casts more light on the controversy involving the judge. Here is just a tiny part of what he writes:
THIS LA TIMES EDITORIAL defending judge Baltasar Garzón is way out of line, for two reasons: one, that the heat he’s getting is not only because he wanted to indict the Franco regime ignoring the 1977 amnesty, but for other potentially more damning cases that have nothing to do with it.
Let’s start with the Franco regime prosecution (leaving aside that Generalissimo Franco is still dead, as do the main strongmen). Many people, virtually all but a handful of regime nostalgics, welcome the attempt to unbury the corpses of people executed by the Franco’s people. The problem is that there’s also hundreds of people buried in mass graves which were killed by the Second Republic (in a civil war both sides killed and are killed, you know). And besides the insistence that he should investigate them too, and indict the culprits too, he’s unwilling to do so. That’s where the unlawful prosecution comes in. If the country really wants to come clean with its past in order to be able to move on with peace of mind, it should treat crimes on both sides equally. Otherwise its looks like one side is now trying to win a war they lost.
And no, the fact that Franco already honored its dead is not an argument. First, because that’s not always the case: there’s hundreds still buried in unmarked sites, in the same roadsites where they were shot. But second and most importantly, because if we consider the Franco regime’s actions illegitimate, worth nothing, the honoring of its dead would be worth nothing either. If the post-1975 democracy wants to settle once and for all the wrongs of the Franco regime, it must honor both its victims and those of the other side, something that has yet to happen.
He then provides some details of other reasons why the judge is under fire and concludes:
So no, LA Times, Garzón’s [troubles] are not as venial as a disagreement on whether to prosecute a dead regime or not. I know it all sounds really strange, more like in a bad movie than reality. Welcome to Spain’s “wonderful” politics.
Be sure to go the link and read Guardia’s post IN FULL.
SPECIAL NOTE: After more than a year of getting emails asking me to sign up, as of last night I am now signed up for Twitter. I’ll be doing not just political Twitters. Also, I travel extensively and sometimes can’t get online to post but when driving I have satellite radio tuned to CNN, CSPAN, POTUS and NPR so I will be commenting more frequently. It may take me a week to figure out how to do it and also clear my desk due to a recent trip and, more importantly, being behind due to the death of a 14 year old feline family member Sunday night. You can follow me on www.twitter.com/JoeGandelman I will post the Twitter “handle” for at least a week. Apologies to the many who emailed me about this over the past year (I may have lost your emails).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.