Francoism's last ride?
The senior investigating judge in Spain and scourge of human rights violators around the world, Baltasar Garzón, has been reported to the Supreme Court for allegedly acting beyond his competencies in ordering the exhumation of people who died in the Spanish Civil War, amongst other things (BBC, El Pais).
The complaints were filed by three groups; Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a group that essentially helps out Franquista apparatchiks when people are looking a bit too closely at what they did pre-75 and has a couple of outstanding complaints about Garzón; Libertad e Identidad (Liberty & Identity), a group I know nothing about beyond their website, which suggests they might not be exactly progressive, and the FE de las JONS, the successor to Franco’s FET y de las JONS.
Garzón is famous internationally for seeking the extradition of Pinochet, prosecuting members of the Argentine junta and filing papers against Osama bin Laden, but has done much more besides in Spain. He’s also even-handed, having considered prosecution of certain members of the Bush administration for complicity in torture.
The Law of Historical Memory represents the best application of universal jurisdiction that can be made to Spain itself given the ’77 amnesty, and the exhumations and investigations ordered by Garzón are part of that and, I’d add, set up as investigatory rather than prosecutory, thus avoiding the amnesty problem.
Part of the pacted change from dictatorship to democracy was an unspoken agreement not to speak about the past. That has been creaking, I’d venture, for some time. The Law of Historical Memory was not an imposition by the PSOE, but represented a genuine desire of at least part of the people of Spain. Democracy is consolidated in Spain. Certainly, Francoism still exists in Spain. I remember staying under the roof of a lady who, when a news item about ETA came on the television, was vociferous in saying how much better things had been under Franco; it is, though, a minority opinion, and a declining minority at that. It is no longer relevant. My hope is that this legal process is, if not the final, one of Francoism’s last rides.
¡No pasarán!
xD.
April 15th, 2010 at 5:05 am
Not unlike Stalinism in Russia – for the elderly and the hooligan.
November 1st, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Our ’78 transition changed the legislative and the execute powers. Not the judicial power. There are plenty of Franco-era judges in the supreme court. And they were afraid of what Garzón might had discovered, so they fired him.
Spain, meet my friend democratic transparency: KABOOM!