European judges association ask for a pardon for Baltasar Garzón
The Minister for Justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, has generally had good things to say about the ex judge, Baltasar Garzón, and has never criticised Garzón’s actions, even when he was investigating the Gürtel case, and now he had to decide whether or not to grant Garzón a pardon. Garzón has been served an eleven year ban from his office because of the Gürtel case when he ordered recordings be made between the prisoners and their lawyers in jail. It has effectively ended his judicial career. But Spain’s most famous judge has many supporters and progressive judges in Europe have asked that he be pardoned. The Association of European Magistrates for Democracy and Freedoms which a membership of about 15,000 judges and prosecutors, is today presenting a petition for clemency and for the ex-magistrate to be given back his condition as judge. The petition says they consider the 11 year ban imposed by Spain’s Supreme Court to be ‘severely disproportionate, indiscriminate and extraordinary’. They say that Garzón ordered the recordings of the Gürtel suspects and their lawyers to be carried out in the jail, not because of any ‘ethical perversion’, but because he was trying to stop the criminal activity in the group. The European association’s initiative was approved with no votes against, by all the groups which make it, including the Spanish ‘Progressive Fiscals Union’, while ‘Judges for Democracy’ abstained. The Government has commented that it has no records of the appeal being placed.
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