The Cadiz Court rejects the recusal against the Barbate judge who is investigating the murder of two civil guards

The Cádiz Court has rejected the request to remove the judge investigating the murder of two Civil Guards who were rammed by a drug boat on February 9 in the port of Barbate (Cádiz) for wearing a Civil Guard bracelet during the testimony of agents of the Armed Institute as witnesses, according to the High Court of Justice of Andalusia. “The fact that the investigating judge wore, as an accessory to the clothing she was wearing, a bracelet with an emblem of the Police force to which some of the parties belong cannot be considered as a reasonable reason for loss of impartiality,” concludes the resolution, which considers that “the presumption and rule of judicial impartiality must prevail without these circumstances influencing it.” “There is no evidence provided from which an objective and reasonable doubt can be derived about the lack of impartiality,” adds the order of the third section of the Provincial Court, which reduces this lack of impartiality to “a mere suspicion.” The challenge of the instructor was raised by the lawyer Rafael Jiménez de Vicuña, defender of David GN, one of the first imprisoned for this murder, and was later joined by two other defenses.

This case took a turn in May, after a report by the Civil Guard exonerated the first six people arrested and imprisoned on the grounds that they were not the ones on board the drug boat that rammed the patrol car in which the murdered agents and four colleagues who were injured were travelling. The first arrested have been in provisional prison since February and the court has so far refused to release them, despite the fact that they are no longer accused of the death of the agents. The argument of the magistrate María Eulalia Chanfreut Rodríguez, supported by the Prosecutor’s Office, is that they are still being investigated for other serious crimes, that of smuggling committed within a criminal organisation and that of resisting the agents of authority.

The lawyer who asked to remove the Barbate judge highlighted in his writing that the fact that the judge used this accessory “with the flag of Spain, the shield of the Civil Guard and the initials of three Civil Guard bodies, these are: UAR – GAR – CAE [correspondientes a Unidad de Acción Rural, Grupo de Acción Rápida y Centro de Adiestramientos Especiales]” was an “unacceptable complicity”. “It is not necessary to indicate, given the considerable media coverage of this case, that one of the deceased belonged to the GAR, and that both the judicial police, as well as private prosecution, and the majority of the witnesses are civil guards”, the lawyer stated. The deceased agents were David Pérez, 43 years old, assigned to this unit, and Miguel Ángel González, from the Group of Specialists in Underwater Activities (GEAS).

After presenting the recusal, Judge Chanfreut decided not to withdraw from the case. “Wearing a Guardia Civil bracelet in no way affects my impartiality,” she maintained in her arguments, according to the ruling of the Provincial Court. The decision was then left to the provincial court, which considers that she used the bracelet with the emblem of the Guardia Civil “as one more accessory,” together with other bracelets that she wore on both wrists. “The fact of dressing in a certain way and wearing certain accessories is a fact outside the jurisdictional function,” details the resolution, which considers that this aspect affects “the intimate and personal aspects of each judge, such as what accessories they use and how they dress.” The court stresses that if this fact were to constitute a “reasonable reason for loss of impartiality”, it would imply “a need to remove” members of the Judiciary from cases for wearing or using accessories of a brand that appears to be damaged in “the numerous proceedings being processed for crimes against property or industrial property” and that in these cases “the presumption and rule of judicial impartiality” should prevail, without these circumstances having any influence.

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