The Prosecutor’s Office demands from the Constitutional Court the right of the victims of Franco’s regime to a judicial investigation

The Prosecutor’s Office before the Constitutional Court, in coordination with the Human Rights and Democratic Memory Unithas filed an appeal for protection before the court of guarantees against the flat file of a complaint for the torture suffered by two brothers in the 70s during their detention for the so-called Political-Social Brigade.

These are the Ferrándiz brothers, who were arrested in 1971, during the dictatorship, when they were barely 17 years old and they spent 32 days in the police station, where they were tortured.

The appeal for protection is based on the violation of the right to
effective judicial protection in its aspect of access to jurisdiction, of
in accordance with the new regulatory scenario that entails the entry into force of the Democratic Memory Law.

It expressly establishes the right to justice of the victims of the coup d’état, the war and the dictatorship, as well as the obligation to investigate the human rights violations perpetrated in that period, reports the Prosecutor’s Office.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office indicates that the Constitutional Court has not
still pronounced on the scope and meaning of the right to
investigation of article 29.1 of the Democratic Memory Law, for
what “the question transcends the specific case because it raises a
legal issue of relevant and general social repercussion”.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office, in previous actions, had already maintained the
criterion that, in application of the new law, it is necessary to carry out
a effective judicial investigation whose ultimate purpose does not have to be criminal prosecution, that is, the conviction of those responsible; but to guarantee the victims their rights to truth, justice and reparationregardless of the final result of the process.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, in this way an interpretation of the
standard with a human rights focus and integration of
core principles of International Rights Law
Human Rights and the Treaties and Conventions on the matter, in accordance
with the requirements of article 10.2 of the Constitution, something with which the memorial associations.

However, the Constitutional Court has recently vetoed the investigation of these crimes by establishing that the Democratic Memory Law “does not comply with the reservation of organic law necessary
for the definition of crimes and their penalties (…), so its articles do not enable the rules of the International law
Penal become a direct or indirect source of Criminal Law to investigate and judge facts that were not classified in the national criminal law then in force, now applying to them the
characteristics of imprescriptibility and of not being susceptible to amnesty”.

This paragraph from the ruling of last June on the case of the retaliated Francisco Ventura, presentation by Cándido Conde-Pumpido, president of the TC, makes it practically impossible for the Prosecutor’s Office appeal presented this Wednesday to have a positive result.