Judge Garzon Convicted
Celebrated and internationally-renowned judge, Baltasar Garzon, became the first victim of the infamous Caso Gürtel when he was convicted of abuse of power by Spain’s Supreme Court (ie., his fellow magistrates). The Gürtel case, a corruption scandal centred around illegal financing and involving many business leaders and PP politicians and supporters, has been on-going for three years, this due to both the slow judicial process but also owing to the vast complexity of the scandal which has tainted many.
The Court unanimously convicted Garzon of the illegal wire-tapping he ordered of conversations between suspects and their lawyers. Garzon’s defence was based on his charge that the lawyers themselves were complicit in the crime in that they were attempting to launder their clients’ money, which derived from dodgy contracts between business and politicians.
But his fellow judges threw it all out, remarking that what Garzon had done was only done nowadays in totalitarian regimes. The 56-year-old, famous, among other things, for trying to extradite Chilean dictator August Pinochet from Britain in the 1998, has been disbarred from practicing law for 11 years and had his judge license permanently revoked. No appeal is possible.
But this is not the end of it: Garzon faces further charges, including over-reaching his judicial powers in investigating crimes against humanity committed under General Franco. If convicted of this, he faces a further 20 years suspension from law. You might ask why this might be a crime: it is because it goes against the grain of the amnesty granted after Franco died, a way of Spain trying to heal its wounds by conveniently forgetting about all the awful things that were done under the General.
Critics say that all the charges against Garzon are politically motivated, but considering his leftist leanings, they all appeared and were initially processed under the Socialists. The PP has never much liked Garzon, so he would do better than to look for support from them. The irony of this whole thing is that in what is considered to be the biggest corruption case in Spain’s modern history, the first victim is he who played a major part in exposing and prosecuting the ring-leaders and their cronies, all of who must now be rubbing their hands with glee.
Labour Reform
The new PP government, lead by the extremely charismatic Mariano Rajoy, has introduced some heavy-handed labour reforms in a bid to re-ignite employment and revive the moribund Spanish economy. Spain’s unemployment rate currently stands near 23 per cent, the highest in Europe, and the only country close to Spain is Greece with 21 per cent (if it makes you feel any better, Zimbabwe’s is over 90 per cent).
Rajoy’s reforms, ostensibly aimed at job creation, appear to undermine current employment standards by making it less expensive for bosses to fire workers and easier to cut wages. Wages in Spain have seriously fallen over the past few years what with the costly Euro and the global economic crisis. This in turn has changed many middle-class families and earners into lower-class citizens of poverty (a phenomenon now familiar in many Euro-based countries). And it was many of these people who took to the streets across the country in protest at the reforms.
Estimates vary, but certainly at least a hundred thousand people participated, expressing vociferous opposition to the limiting of hard-won rights. By now a common formula of austerity, it is ‘pay people less,’ ‘charge them more’ (at the pump, the supermarket, in taxes, etc), and expect them to look kindly at you. The mayors of Barcelona and Madrid both earn more than one hundred thousand euros a year; this is more than what the President of the country earns, and certainly far more than what you or I earn.
People are demanding cuts be made fairly, but this is not likely to happen. We are not able to judge what Rajoy’s new reforms will amount to yet. If he manages to pull it off and create jobs and economic growth, then we will have to begrudge him his due. Meanwhile, more strikes seem likely.
Executive Pay Hair-cuts
In a bid to make those who earn more, share in the “pain” of austerity, the Government has capped executives’ pay in state-owned companies. God bless them. The new limit will be no more than 105 thousand euros, although productivity bonuses will still be included. This amounts to a 35 per cent pay cut for the top dogs of nearly 4,000 businesses.
New PP power-broker and deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, claimed that these “are still reasonable wages… at a time of austerity.” The smaller dogs have had their salaries capped at 80 thousand and 55 thousand. Rajoy is trimming hair where he can as Brussels is demanding 40 billion worth of cuts for this year’s budget alone.
Part of his plan involves tax rises and spending cuts, which will only foment further unemployment. If the great unwashed really want to do something, then it is now time to march on Madrid, on all the headquarters of the autonomous regions, the provinces, and all town halls to demand that politicians pack up and go by nightfall.