Editorial

In Italy they call the Mafia, the Octopus, because its tentacles reach everywhere; in Spain the same could be said about the political class.

Since Democracy was reinstated in the 70’s the country’s political parties have been slowly invading every aspect of society, seeping into the banking system and worst of all, the Judiciary System.

Spain’s banking crisis was primarily provoked by the regional savings-bank sector. The ruling party in each autonomous region managed to put their people into top positions in these banks, and in many cases, politicians with no financial curriculum. The result was that when regional elections came around and the governing party wanted to impress the voting public, they would give orders to their regional savings bank to extend credit for pharaonic building projects, which is why Spain has more regional airports than Germany, for example. The country is littered with these macro projects; testimony to outrageous over spending.

Bankia, for example, which was a fusion of ailing regional savings banks in the hands of the PP into a high street bank, is a classic example. Rodrigo Rato, ex Minister of Finance under Aznar and ex IMF Chairman, was brought in to head Bankia. Bankia fell through the floor yet no judicial investigation is seriously looking into what happened or the highly irregular sale of preference shares. And Bankia is just one of many cases which involve parties from both sides of the political spectrum.

And then we come to the Judiciary System. The CGPJ (Consejo General de Poder Judicial) which is the governing board of the judiciary system, is shamelessly stuffed with conservative appointed judges – when the socialist ruled the roost, it was the opposite way around. To claim that the CGPJ is not ‘influenced in its decisions’ by the conservative Central Government would be naive – in fact the opposite manifests itself constantly.

Take the case of Baltazar Garzón, who was heading the investigations into the corruption in the conservative ranks… half a dozen years later and the only person that has suffered a fate handed down by the Spanish judicial system was the judge himself, who was removed from the case and barred from holding office for eleven years.

Next came the judge who was investigating Miguel Blesa, ex-Caja Madrid General Director and Minister under Aznar, Judge Silva. He put Sr. Blesa in prison without bail pending trial for forgery and misappropriation of funds, but his decision was overturned by his superiors and now faces being suspended and barred, as well. Today the decision will be taken.

But it doesn’t stop there because the biggest corruption case in Spain’s recent past, El Caso Gürtel/Barcenas, is being handled by a young judge with no real experience – amazingly, and that’s the way that the CGPJ is keeping it.

The judge, Pablo Ruz is the substitute judge in Central Court Number Five. Under normal circumstances he would be lucky to get a judge’s office in a large municipality with the little experience that he has.

Precisely because Judge Ruz knows that his future career is in the hands of the CGPJ, he is advancing slowly and only appears to make decisions based on the ‘suggestions’ provided the top Public Prosecutor, who owes his own position to the Government – it’s a political post.

Central Court No.5 should belong to Judge Miguel Carmona, but until September he is attached to the CGPJ. However the CGPJ has just announced that Judge Ruz will continue after September as Judge Carmona’s assistant, which is completely illegal: under Artículo 216 bis 3 de la Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial it should have been open to any judge that wished to opt for it and the selection made according to the candidate’s seniority (Ruz doesn’t have any). Instead, the CGPJ just made an arbitrary and illegal decision to appoint Ruz.

The real danger here is that a big law firm could use this to have the case dismissed; something the Governing party will not shed any tears over and… a reasonable doubt exists that it could be deliberate.

Let me finish this over-long and already tedious article with the words contained in an SMS sent by the Prime Minister to Barcenas, who is now languishing in prison despite the Government’s efforts to keep him out of it: “We are doing what we can.” No-one could fail to have noticed, could they!

(News/Editorial: Spain)