The strike by lawyers from the administration of justice has ended up postponing the expected trial for the ‘Novo Carthago’ case, one of the major procedures for alleged urban corruption that the Murcian courts have instructed. The hearing should have started at the Provincial Court at the end of February, but the strike made it impossible.
The court, faced with this situation, waited a few days in case a prompt resolution of the conflict still allowed the sessions to be relocated to the scheduled calendar, but this Tuesday -with five of the twenty scheduled sessions postponed and an end to the conflict that is not in sight- agreed to the suspension of the macro-trial on the understanding that “it would no longer be materially possible to hold it.”
This suspension has forced the Court to set a new date to rule on the alleged illegal reclassification of protected land next to the Mar Menor. The hearing cannot be held until September 29, 2025, 19 years after the investigations began. This situation was already noticed by the superior prosecutor of the Community, José Luis Díaz Manzanera, who did not hide his concern that the hearing would still have to wait several years. With this time horizon, he warned, the door is open to recognition of the delay in the procedure and for the defendants to obtain reductions in their hypothetical sentences.
The hearing, once it is held, will force two of the most powerful advisers of the Valcárcel governments to go through the court: Antonio Cerdá, head of Agriculture and Water in several of those executives, and Joaquín Bascuñana, who was a director of Public Works of the regional Executive, among other positions with a long political career always linked to the PP. In addition, he was a government delegate between 2011 and 2015, the year in which he resigned due to his charges in this case.
Call for reinforcements
The delay in the new signaling is forced by the overload in the signaling agenda of the criminal sections of the Provincial Court, which since 2015 have required significant reinforcements by the Superior Court of Justice. Thus, currently the second and third sections have the reinforcement of two magistrates of territorial affiliation and a third on secondment with relief from duties. That is to say, it has the reinforcement of three magistrates, on a floor of nine.
In addition, in 2021 the Government Chamber approved a new reinforcement with the splitting of the Criminal jurisdiction of the Provincial Court of Murcia, into four functional sections, to allow doubling the number of trials indicated by these collegiate bodies.
Precisely the monthly meeting of the Government Chamber held this Tuesday included in its agenda the proposal to create a new Criminal section of the Provincial Court of Murcia, with four new magistrates. This reinforcement is necessary in view of the fact that the successive reinforcements destined to support these bodies and the effort deployed by the magistrates and magistrates does not allow the existing workload to be absorbed, explained sources toys. The proposal, after unanimous approval, will be submitted to the General Council of the Judiciary and the Ministry of Justice
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