Manuel Piñar, the judge “obsessed” with Juana Rivas who insulted half the government

June 30, 2024 was the last day of Judge Manuel Piñar Díaz as head of Criminal Court number 1 of Granada. He hung up his robe early after a controversial career of almost three decades. His retirement “was not received as bad news” in certain judicial circles in the Andalusian city, acknowledges a lawyer who has treated him for years, even before his name hit the front page of the newspapers after taking Juana to prison. Rivas for fleeing with her children so as not to hand them over to her father, who was reported for abuse.

The decision of the Italian Prosecutor’s Office to accuse Francesco Arcuri, Rivas’ ex-partner, of mistreating their children has brought back to the news the name of a judge who has a history of controversial resolutions, especially in cases related to women. and sexist violence, and that has two cases pending in court.

In 2018, the magistrate signed the sentence that sentenced Rivas to five years in prison, six years of loss of parental authority and a fine of 30,000 euros for two crimes of child abduction. In that resolution he accused Maracena’s mother of “exploiting the argument of abuse” or using the media and even valued the “wrong” legal advice received by the woman. In addition, he even asked him during the hearing why he had returned to Arcuri despite having reported him years before.

In April 2021, the Supreme Court revoked part of the sentence: it reduced the sentence to two and a half years and the fine to 12,000 euros. However, the firmness of the resolution led to the woman being imprisoned. Half a year later, the Government granted him a partial pardon and shortened his sentence to 15 months, which in practice and given the time he had already served, meant his release.

But Piñar reappeared again. He refused to allow him to be released from prison on the grounds that, since he had not repented, “he could represent a serious danger to his children,” against the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Italian Justice, which allowed the minors to spend Christmas in Spain with his mother.

Days later, Penitentiary Institutions granted him the third degree so that he could serve his sentence at home with a telematic bracelet. In March 2022, the Granada Court ended up revoking Judge Piñar’s decision and the woman was freed five years after fleeing with her children to avoid putting them in the hands of the man whom the Italian Prosecutor’s Office now accuses of mistreating them. By then, her case had already become a paradigm of patriarchal justice in which gender stereotypes still persist.

Before that case, the judge had already accumulated other controversial resolutions. For example, in a 2011 ruling he stated that the Prosecutor’s Office prevented “the proper prosecution of some false complaints of false mistreatment” due to “excessive ideological zeal” to protect women. In reality, Piñar’s personal assessments in his sentences go back decades. In 1999, he reduced compensation to a woman who had suffered an accident because the scar she had left was only visible “in intimate situations” and because “seeing the beauty and attractiveness of the person” could be “an element of physical attraction.” ”.

“Obcecado” with Juana Rivas

Piñar entered the judiciary in 1997 through the so-called fourth round, based on merit and experience, without passing an opposition. Those who know him say that he has cultivated a certain reputation as a “vigilante” for years. And that, especially with the Rivas affair, he has been able to fall into “obsession.” It is not in vain that her comments on social networks show her love for contempt for equality policies and feminism. He has also openly shown his opposition to the coalition government, with personal disqualifications towards several members of the Executive, such as Pedro Sánchez or Fernando Grande-Marlaska, but also towards former ministers such as Irene Montero, José Luis Ábalos or the former vice president Pablo Iglesias.

In these publications, the judge used the term “feminazi swill” or illustrated with the comment “feminazi communism” information about a work trip that the former Minister of Equality Irene Montero made to New York. At another time he assured that there are “hundreds of cases of false complaints [de mujeres migrantes] seeking regularization.” Or he wrote “thieves, corrupt and on top of that with pride. Heirs of José María el Tempranito [sic]” accompanied by a photo of the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

In one of the shared posts, posted by another user, he showed a photomontage of Sánchez with blood-stained handswho was accused of being “president thanks to being on his knees in front of the heirs of the murderers” of Gregorio Ordóñez, murdered in January 1995 by ETA. In another, Irene Montero was called “miserable” and in another it is suggested that she is an “asshole” due to a report from the Women’s Institute in which it is stated that men pollute more than women. He called her and Iglesias “xorizos” in another of his posts.

Rivas’s lawyer, Carlos Aránguez, considered that they were publications inappropriate for a judge and brought some of them to the attention of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). However, the governing body of the judges refused to sanction the judge in July 2023, understanding that he had not identified himself as a magistrate when he wrote those comments and that, therefore, he did so “in his private capacity as a mere citizen” and not as member of the judiciary.

The lawyer took those messages to court as a possible hate crime. In his statement in court last February, he denied having published them and declared himself the victim of “persecution.” “I have nothing to do with those comments attributed to me. I am not the author. In this act I denounce a violation of important fundamental rights and marked persecution at the political level. “This is reminiscent of times past,” he stated before the Court of Instruction 8 of Granada, according to the videos of that statement published by laSexta.

During the interrogation, the then judge also alluded to an opinion article by Antonio Maestre published in elDiario.es titled ‘The fascist judges who hate Irene Montero’ to support his thesis that she is the victim of “persecution.” However, in that article neither he nor the rest of the judges he referred to before the judge (Manuel García Castellón, Concepción Espejel…) are cited. “He says we are philo-fascists. This is elDiario.es, a newspaper that seems left-wing,” said Piñar to try to prove a point made by this newspaper. Aránguez affirms that the investigation of this case is close to completion. And remember that he also has another open investigation for a possible crime of false testimony in which he is summoned to testify on January 14.

In September 2024, he was sanctioned by the CGPJ for another matter: sending the newspaper ABC a statement in which he mentioned data about alleged abuse of one of Rivas’s minor children. That statement was sent to the aforementioned media in December 2021, shortly after resisting applying the pardon approved by the Government. In this case, the disciplinary authority of the CGPJ considered him the author of a serious infraction for revealing sensitive data of a minor “that should never have been revealed.” He imposed a fine of 1,500 euros, which Piñar received when he was already enjoying his retirement.

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