Carlos Castresana: “Spanish justice is incapable of recognizing its errors and correcting them” | Culture | EUROtoday

He has simply revealed a e-book, his first e-book, however prosecutor Carlos Castresana (Madrid, 67 years outdated) has been writing particular person chapters of the story on stamped paper for a few years. There was already a want for model within the first paragraphs of his indictment writings towards the dictators Augusto Pinochet and Jorge Rafael Videla, and in addition earlier than, a lot earlier than, when he was a younger prosecutor pursuing political corruption in Spain. Now, with Under the togas. Judicial errors and different infamies (Tusquets)Castresana —who was additionally a UN commissioner towards impunity in Guatemala— rescues for the Spanish reader the custom, basically Anglo-Saxon, of turning judicial rulings of particular relevance into literature.

Ask. Why is not there this practice in Spain of recreating well-known sentences, instances surrounded by controversy, unjust convictions?

Answer. Perhaps as a result of in different international locations – after all in France, in Great Britain, within the United States… – they’re much less scrupulous than us in recognizing errors. When they make a mistake, they acknowledge it and rectify it. But one of many traits of the Spanish penal system is its rigidity, its incapacity to acknowledge when it’s improper and to rectify it appropriately.

P. Why does that occur?

R. Well, due to a historic custom. The justice that we had—which couldn’t be known as the judiciary as a result of it was an equipment of the dictatorship—is reworked into an unbiased judiciary with out even a reform, tiptoeing via the Transition. Hence, we proceed to have an unbiased judiciary as a result of the legislation says so and since there’s a General Council of the Judiciary, however it’s fully refractory to criticism and even self-criticism. For instance, this can be very troublesome for the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court to rectify, and much more so for them to provide you first rate compensation when you could have been in jail for a criminal offense that you just didn’t commit. I believe there’s a nice disconnection between justice and society.

P. Could this void have an effect on the truth that, though the information is filled with courtroom instances, our authorized schooling doesn’t transcend what we’ve got seen within the motion pictures or what we poorly study from rumour?

R. The Spanish reader ignores virtually all the things as a result of nobody has stopped to clarify to him what the presumption of innocence is, or affordable doubt, or proof of accusation… That is why I made a decision that this needed to be a e-book for laymen, for all audiences, and that I needed to present all this with out it turning into a legislation treatise, however relatively telling tales, like parables of the Gospel. I inform the reader: look, that is the way it works. Well-treated circumstantial proof is completed this manner, and right here I offer you an instance of the place it has been achieved improper and results in the conviction of harmless individuals.

P. There are some moments in studying the e-book when the reader feels virtually accountable for the destiny of the accused, as if he had been simply one other member of the jury…

R. That was exactly the sport I used to be on the lookout for. I current the case and the circumstances surrounding it; all of the items of the puzzle essential to unravel it. And then I say: that is what the courtroom or the jury determined, that is what I believe – with out proclaiming any incontrovertible reality – and now I invite you to learn it, cease, mirror and problem your individual verdict, which can be that of the jury or often is the reverse…

P. Or even have the identical doubts to sentence or acquit…

R. Clear. There are instances, just like the dismemberment of Boston, which is a borderline case, the place you say: I consider that the person was responsible, however I’m not certain that it was sufficiently confirmed that he was responsible. And different instances that elevate ethical doubts which might be from the sixteenth century, however that might come up identically within the twenty first. The case of Beatrice Cenci, a younger Roman lady who kills her father as a result of he had turned her into his sexual slave. We ask ourselves: Does he need to proceed placing up together with his father’s abuse till the tip of time? Can we apply some mitigating issue? Do we condemn it? Do we absolve her? The similar factor would come up if the identical patricide had been dedicated right now…

P. Another amazingly present case is that the e-book is titled Sarah’s phrase. The rape criticism of a younger, single, poor lady, the sufferer of a member of the English aristocracy, required quite a lot of braveness… You say: “She showed she had it. It was others who failed to live up to their word.”

R. The trial takes place in London on the finish of the 18th century, however the query of consent in sexual relations and the appreciation made in courtroom of ladies’s testimony is absolutely related. And right here there was not solely class discrimination – a hatmaker towards a lord – but additionally as a result of she was a single lady. There is forensic skilled proof that signifies that she was subjected to excessive sexual violence, however it’s ignored, and she or he can be accused of taking three days to report, with out contemplating that she had beforehand been kidnapped… These issues proceed to occur.

P. There is within the e-book – his first e-book – an simple want for model…

R. An outdated prosecutor stated that fifty% of the prosecutor’s job is literature, language. We ask for what corresponds in courtroom by expressing it in writing, and it’s important to specific it effectively in order that it’s efficient and procure what we would like. I’ve written lots, for a few years, after all they had been skilled writings, however it’s nonetheless a faculty…

P. Even so, there are sentences which might be very obscure, not solely due to their substance, however due to their kind. Just a few days in the past, Álex Grijelmo wrote a column about how badly Judge Juan Carlos Peinado writes, and added that “such convoluted phrases obscure the arguments.”

R. Formerly there was a method fee within the Supreme Court. The magistrates wrote, effectively or badly, however after issuing the sentence, some grammatical and in a roundabout way literary correctors transformed it right into a language that may very well be saved as a precedent. I do not know when it disappeared, however actually now there are some which might be incomprehensible, as a result of in addition they endure lots from reducing and pasting.

P. His e-book has simply been revealed and the third version is already being ready. To what do you attribute this attraction to reviewing judicial instances?

R. There is a trigger on which, to illustrate, judicial literature hinges, and that’s that everybody is moved by injustices, particularly if they’re bloody injustices. There are some chapters that you just learn and it makes you sick, and also you say: however how may they be able to this atrocity… That poor boy who enters the courtroom accompanying a buddy who has to gather some papers and finally ends up sentenced to dying… All of us who’re concerned in administering justice ought to mirror on a phrase that I heard many occasions within the Truth Commissions in Central America through the nineties: “Now that I have told you the truth, what are you going to do with it?”