The Spanish judge who made headlines around the world for pursuing foreign dictators from his court in Madrid has spoken out against his government's move to limit cross-border justice, and warned that the proposed changes are part of a wider step backwards on human rights in Spain.
Spanish MPs voted on Tuesday to usher in a fast-track reform that would drastically impede judges from investigating crimes outside of Spain's borders.
For nearly two decades, Spanish judges have used the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to investigate human rights abuses in countries including Guatemala, Chad and Argentina.
Baltasar Garzón ... back in 2009 ... had set his sights on ...
Spain's crusading prosecutor, Judge Baltasar Garzon, was not put in charge of prosecuting the Torture Lawyers- Judge Eloy Velasco is reviewing that case. But Garzon has opened a brand new case, according to AFP:
Judge Baltasar Garzon will probe the "perpetrators, the instigators, the necessary collaborators and accomplices" to crimes of torture...
According to his sources the targets of this investigation include Condoleeza Rice and Richard B. Cheney. What is likely to happen next is for the investigation to proceed; if unappealed, a court date will be set, and the targets will be advised to appear. Garzón may then issue an arrest warrant that will be valid, at least in Spain, but possibly other countries.
All of a sudden Garzón disappeared from the international scene. He had overstepped the then present moral constraints against prosecuting torturers -- especially if they were named Dick Cheney.
In March 2009, Garzón considered whether Spain should allow charges to be filed against former officials from the United States government under George W. Bush for offering justifications for torture. The six former Bush officials are: Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General; John Yoo, of the Office of Legal Counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, also at Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff.
However, the investigation was assigned to Judge Eloy Velasco who chose not to pursue it stating that Spain could not investigate the case if the U.S. did not intend to conduct its own investigation into the matter. In a U.S. diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks it was revealed that Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza intended to argue that the case should not be assigned to Judge Garzón, and a later cable stated that Garzón was "forced to give up" the investigation. It was revealed that Zaragoza had strategized how to force Garzón to give up the case ...
Getting too close to darling Dickeypoo ...
But Spain, which has recently been tilting rightward toward its Franco dictatorship past, has been twitching a bit leftward, towards freedom, towards exposing its ugly past:
MADRID — José María Galante was a leftist college student when he was handcuffed to the ceiling of a basement torture chamber, his body dangling in the air. A police inspector laughed and taunted him, striking martial arts poses before repeatedly kicking and beating his face and chest.
The man who Mr. Galante says tortured him was an infamous enforcer of the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s, widely known as Billy the Kid ... This week, Mr. Galante is again planning to see Billy the Kid, whose real name is Antonio González Pacheco. This time, it will be at a hearing at Spain’s National Court, where Mr. Galante and other victims are, for the first time, seeking to prosecute Mr. Pacheco in a case that is reopening the country’s painful Francoist past and threatening the political pact that helped Spain transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Even Garzón got a brief mention:
In 2008, Judge Baltasar Garzón, a crusading magistrate known for stirring up controversy, opened an inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity during the Franco era. Within two years, Judge Garzón’s investigation was shut down after a right-wing group (represented by Mr. Alonso of the Franco Foundation) filed a lawsuit accusing him of overstepping his judicial authority.
Eventually, Spain’s Supreme Court removed him from the bench after finding that he had wrongly used illegal wiretapping in a different case — a finding that his supporters say was politically motivated. “In my case, it was an example of killing the messenger,” Judge Garzón said in an interview. “What they don’t understand is, yes, the transition was fine — at the time of the transition. But they don’t understand that now, the government is not allowing access to the truth, to justice.”
Fresh air appears to be blowing across Spain. Will it swing westward across the Atlantic to blow away the torturous stench of Cheney/Bush et al?
Truth? Justice?