An updated guide for Spanish judges on how to try to avoid applying the amnesty law has caused uproar and controversy in a corporate email chat used by the Spanish judiciary. According to the newspaper Ara, a judges' association used this chat space to share a guide briefing judges on how, when the time comes, they can avoid applying the law annulling pro-independence prosecutions, which recommends actions such as "elevating the amnesty to the European Court of Justice or to the Constitutional Court". The conservative sector of the judges approved of the message, but not those in the more progressive wing, a fact that triggered an avalanche of reproaches between the two sides, mutual accusing one another of "politicizing justice".
This large-scale chat in the corporate mail of Spain's General Council of the Judiciary has been functioning since 2008. In fact, some sources acknowledge to the Catalan newspaper that during the years of the Catalan independence process, the climate in the online exchanges was even more tense than it is now.
An amnesty "tailor-made for a coward"
Among the messages sent by the conservatives, the exiled Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is spoken of as a "coward" and there are claims that the amnesty was tailor-made for him. On the other hand, the more progressive judges refer to this guide to circumvent the application of the law as a "pamphlet" and accuse its promoters of interfering with the work of judges and of "acting politically". According to the newspaper, for example, a judge of first instance from an Alacant town considers the amnesty law to be "partial": "This law does not aim at coexistence and harmony; it is only to keep a person in power".
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It is a judge from Cádiz who talks about a "coward": "Before, pardoning was an attack, but now pardoning politicians, eliminating crimes and reducing penalties for them and their minions, and tailoring an amnesty for a coward is seen as the most democratic of actions, using justifications that we all know are lies, and, moreover, are used by the same people who insult and attack us". For her part, a judge from Córdoba is convinced that "the opinion will make a public mockery of the judges who correctly apply the law". "I think I will stand with my colleagues when they are lynched like dogs for fulfilling their function and doing their work, although I'm sure others will hide behind the argumentative fallacy of not getting into political matters. Good luck, we'll need it."
"Supposedly apolitical"
The progressive judges also have their say and denounce a false "apolitical" stand by the conservatives, as, for example, a judge from the city of Gijón comments: "To me, putting aside opinions on the substance, what surprises me is that these proposals [to avoid applying the amnesty] are made and, at the same time, there is an intention to act from a supposedly apolitical position. How lucky that it was someone else who was the activist!" In the same vein, a Valladolid judge expresses himself: "It would be very good if they stopped intoxicating the issue and putting all of us judges in a place where we should not be - that is, maintaining political positions. When a case reaches you, raise all the questions of unconstitutionality that you see fit to do, but, for now, I'd be grateful if you left us with our function of judging and enforcing what is judged."