The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has expanded the information it offered last January to the European Commission for the preparation of its annual report on the Rule of Law in Spain, detailing the “attacks” of the ministers Irene Montero and Ione Belarra to judges and magistrates for their application of the law of only yes is yes.
This is stated in a document approved on March 21 by the Permanent Commission of the CGPJ, an extension of the one that it already sent to the European Commission last January, two texts to which Europa Press has had access.
In that first report, the CGPJ warned Brussels that its renewal is “the only solution” to the “crisis”, although it also pointed to a legal reform. Dissatisfied with this text, a group of five members sent “complementary” answers to the questions raised by Brussels where they denounced the “serious” weakening of judicial independence and, specifically, “the insulting public demonstrations and attacks by members of the Government and the legislature against judges and magistrates”.
According to the sources of the governing body of the judges consulted, it is usual that after this first ‘dossier’, the Community Executive requests an interview with the issuing body to expand information or resolve doubts. In this case it was with the vocal Nuria Abad, who verbally conveyed what is now reflected in this second report.
In this new document, the European Commission asks the CGPJ to provide “more information” on “the attacks against members of the judiciary” that the Council has been condemning in “several statements”.
The Council specifies that “there were two institutional declarations by the Permanent Commission”. “The first occurred on March 30, 2022 in relation to the placement of a sign at the Palma de Mallorca intermodal station, already withdrawn at that time after the controversy that arose,” he recalls.
It describes that said poster “attributed to the image of a judge a vexatious and macho message addressed to a victim of gender violence.” “The text that was put into the judge’s mouth, which was addressed to a woman, was the following:” How can I believe that her husband mistreats you if you are alive! “, she collects.
The CGPJ specifies that the poster “reflected the logos of the Ministry of Equality, the State Pact against Gender Violence, the Institut Balear de la Dona and the Ministry of the Presidency, Public Function and Equality of the Government of the Balearic Islands “, so it reflects that he addressed these organizations to “transfer to those responsible the strongest rejection.”
“The Permanent Commission also rejected the apparent instrumentalization of the institutions for the financing and achievement of objectives contrary to the inspiring principles of the State Pact against Gender Violence, whose defense is guaranteed daily by judges and courts,” he explained to Brussels.
It then indicates that “the second of these institutional declarations occurred on November 16, 2022”: “It was a statement in relation to the judicial decisions to review sentences issued in application of Organic Law 10/2022, of September 6, of the integral guarantee of sexual freedom, as a result of its entry into force on the previous October 7”.
In this regard, it relates that, “once the first decisions of the courts were known, the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, had stated in public statements that: ‘What is happening here is that there are judges who are not complying with the law. It has happened to us with the visiting regimes for abusers in the Children’s Law and now it also happens to us with the Law ‘only if it is yes’ “.
And he adds that while “the Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra, had published a message on the social network Twitter saying that: ‘Some of the judges in this country have set themselves up as opposition to the coalition government and especially to the Ministry of Equality, which is taking progress further than ever. They are misapplying the ‘law only if it is yes’ and following the example of the CGPJ.”
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