The crisis unleashed by the Civil Guard's report on the 8th March demonstration, between the Spanish government and the State - that is, between politicians who are elected and, therefore, temporary, and the real institutions of the State, those that make it permanent and eternal - blows the system to smithereens.
It is claimed by some, those continually vomiting insults, that the Civil Guard are above criticism when they are acting as judicial police force (as if they were independent, like the judges). But this intentionally overlooks that the judicial police, whichever police body they belong to, are not independent. Nor, for all the emphasis given to this aspect, do they carry out confidential judicial investigations. Judicial investigations are not confidential. Moreover, according to constitutional and Strasbourg jurisprudence, with the exception of elements expressly declared to be secret, those relating to minors and some other exceptions, legal proceedings cannot be removed from public opinion. Once again, the so-called constitutionalists are at a dead end.
Browsing the report in question, presented to investigating judge number 51 in Madrid, it is clear that it is a statement which, for lack of factual basis, does not enter into the substance of the matter, since, as goes without saying, the Civil Guard lack the medical knowledge for such a task.
Consequently, instead of shutting up, it deals with other things. On the one hand, it gives opinions here and there, mutilating documents, in a way that lacks impartiality and is the opposite of what the law requires, in all cases (as specified in Article 2 of Spain's Law of Criminal Procedure). The opinion of the judicial police on whether or not a given action has a certain significance is judicially irrelevant. What the police must provide to the judge are facts, not opinions.
To give some more examples (apart from the ones I mentioned in a previous article): the report is entirely focused on the demonstration of 8th March, International Women's Day, a demonstration, remember, that was feminist and therefore dangerous in the eyes of the [right wing] anti-system types that swarm around the Carrera de San Jerónimo and the Plaza de la Marina Española in Madrid. But on that same day there was also the event held by Vox in the Vista Alegre arena. Although some leaders came out of it (if they didn't already go into it) infected with coronavirus, nothing about that is mentioned in the report. An indoor rally would be considered no less infectious than a street demonstration. The judicial police of the Civil Guard neither assess this nor mention it. Nor do they consider football matches or other gatherings that took place on a more or less massive scale. Feminism, as was suspected, is for some a social solvent. That is to say, the same old story: about our allies, nothing; against the dissidents, a torrent of criticism. Here, the dissident is the Spanish government.
The opinion of the judicial police as to whether or not a given action has a certain significance is judicially irrelevant. What the police must provide to the judge are facts, not opinions.
However, what are these police opinions based on? On three sources: statements made by witnesses at police stations - that is, made without procedural guarantees - which, when transcribed in the report, state the opposite of what those witnesses said in police presence. In addition, a lot of resolutions by governments, international and European organizations and groups of leaders or experts - or not-so-experts - on the subject of what would happen to the pandemic. Everything is mixed together, edited here and there, and passed through the bias blender. And finally, the jewel in the crown: cuttings from the best known digital newspapers that have difficult relationships with reality, which from time to time judges have to correct.
This is the point I wanted to get to: newspaper clippings as a source of judicial pre-evidence; judicial, because the judge did not return the report the same way as she received it but incorporated it into the case. Let’s recall some recent events. When [former Spanish interior minister] Fernández Díaz reigned, it was a rare day when there was no juicy material in the press. For example, from the conversations recorded - and broadcast - between the minister and the then-director of the Anti-Fraud Office, Daniel de Alfonso.
Well, with these leaks, the veracity of which no one doubted, and certainly which no one questioned or challenged in court, a complaint was made to the Supreme Court. A complaint that was rejected because, according to the resolution of November 7th, 2016, newspaper clippings are unreliable. Remember? It concluded: "the evidence supporting the claimed facts is journalistic news which contains the transcripts of conversations, whose level of correspondence with reality is unknown".
If this is the judicial doctrine, shouldn't the judicial police operating under the orders of the judges apply it fully? And, by the way, the investigating judge should do the same. Once again, the law of the funnel - broad for some, and narrow for others - presents itself as the real Magna Carta of the regime: it never fails.
This means, as experienced in everyday practice, that many such reports are not even worth the paper they are written on, that too often they are pure fantasy and that, unfortunately, too often the judges accept them, even if later they have to jump through hoops to issue sentences that are not directly based on them. A clear example was the sentence against the Catalan independence leaders: the reports issued by the judicial police of the Civil Guard in Catalonia were formally ignored in the sentence. For example, neither the Powerpoint document Enfocats nor the Moleskine diary, central to the statements of Civil Guard lieutenant Colonel Baena - who saw nothing of what he wrote, as he himself said - were not even exhibited at the trial. One has to think that the paranormal relationship with the truth of some witnesses was sufficient.
That these police reports often consist of such paraphernalia, especially when they are political (forged in the anti-ETA oven), is something that the "most progressive government in history" (which history?), with two ministers who are judges, must have been well aware. Especially Marlaska, three times condemned by Strasbourg for believing the police and not those who were allegedly tortured. It's a case of alguacil alguacilado - "the bailiff has been bailiffed" - Francisco de Quevedo, such a reactionary himself, once again nailed it.