The top governing body for the judiciary (CGPJ) is investigating a female judge who asked a victim of sexual abuse, “Did you keep your legs well closed?”

Judge María del Carmen Molina Mansilla, who presides over the domestic violence court of Vitoria, had already faced a call for her to be suspended for this affair but the complaint had been shelved. The CGPJ, however has reopened the case.

According to the Asociación Clara Campoamor which brought the complaint against the judge, this style of comment from her is “habitual and continuous.”

The judiciary disciplinary board originally examined the 45-minute recording of the hearing and concluded that the judge’s words “were necessary to clarify the facts,” and consequently shelved the complaint.

Editorial comment: Had it been a male judge, all hell would have broken loose and he would have been almost certainly suspended and rightly so. So it’s not what you say, but who says it, it appears.

(News: Vitoria, Castilla Leon, Spain)