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Spain high court to hear challenge against terrorism judge Garzon

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Spanish Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will accept a challenge accusing Audiencia Nacional Judge Baltasar Garzon of knowingly giving an unjust verdict or resolution. The decision comes as the result of a complaint filed by Manos Limpias, a union of public servants in Spain, which alleged that Garzon acted without jurisdiction in violation of Penal Code Article 446 when he launched investigations into Civil War-era crimes committed by the regime of General Francisco Franco. In October 2008, Garzon ordered the exhumation of 19 mass graves in Spain, and ordered government agencies, the Episcopal Conference, the University of Granada, and the mayors of four cities to produce the names of people buried in mass graves in order to assemble a definitive national registry. Spanish prosecutors had objected to the probe on the grounds that it ran counter to the country's 1977 amnesty law, and its 2007 condemnation of the Franco dictatorship. Garzon is widely known for his high-profile investigations of terrorism and human rights abuses including cases against Osama bin Laden and former Latin American dictator Augusto Pinochet and investigations into detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay. In 2005, he called for the creation of a "truth commission" to uncover Franco-era abuses. Estimates of the number of people killed during the 1936-39 Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship range from 90,000 to 180,000

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).