Individual
reports:
Report Nº 13
Petition from European Democratic Lawyers (AED)
to the General Council of Spanish Lawyers:
(This page as word doc.)
TO THE CONSEJO GENERAL DE LA ABOGACÍA ESPAÑOLA
(GENERAL COUNCIL OF SPANISH LAWYERS)
The
international Association of which I am president,
the European Democratic Lawyers (AED) has had
knowledge of serious procedural incidents during
the oral hearings being held at the 3rd Section
of the Audiencia Nacional (Case 18/98),
through several of our members who have attended
these hearings as accredited observers. Therefore,
at the General Assembly held on January 20th in
Brussels, the Association agreed to address this
Council in order to state the following:
First. - Since the beginning of the Trial,
several lawyers from our Association have regularly
attended the oral hearings as juridical observers
with due authorisation from the Tribunal. The
incidents explained below were directly witnessed
by the said observers.
Second. - One of the preliminary objections
made by the defence counsel for the 58 defendants
at the beginning of the oral hearings, referred
to the fact that a large number of pieces of documentary
evidence requested and approved by the Tribunal
as anticipated evidence were not included in the
Case files. The observers were able to verify,
according to the account of evidence proposed
and admitted and its state provided by the Secretary,
that the said pieces of evidence had not been
incorporated into the proceedings. Likewise, the
defence requested the Secretary gave an account
of the pieces of evidence which were at the disposal
of the Court at that time, and that they be located
among the proceedings, totalling in excess of
200,000 sheets. This request was disregarded.
The preliminary objection demanding the hearings
be adjourned until all the agreed preliminary
pieces of evidence were incorporated into the
proceedings and made available to all the parties
was rejected by the Tribunal, which agreed to
resume the sessions.
Third. - During the session of December
20th, 2005, one of the requested and admitted
preliminary pieces of evidence was incorporated
into the proceedings. This piece was a set of
older proceedings from Central Investigation Court
Nº5, which were opened in 1989, and to which
the prosecutions, booth the Prosecutor Fiscal
and the private prosecution (Asociación
de Víctimas del Terrorismo) had referred
to as evidence. It was therefore clear that they
were aware of the content of these proceedings.
The said piece of evidence amounts to approximately
100,000 sheets of paper.
Despite the fact that it had been added to the
proceedings, the said piece of evidence was not
made available to the counsel for the defence
immediately. The reason given for this was that
the Tribunal had to examine its content and organise
it first.
Fourth. - More than one month later, the
lawyers for the defence had not been given a copy
of the said documents, and they had only been
allowed to consult this material at the Secretary’s
office within a very limited timetable. The defence
therefore requested the Trial be adjourned for
the time necessary to at least minimally appraise
the content of such a voluminous piece of documentary
evidence.
When this request was denied again, the lawyers
for the defence called for backing from their
respective Professional Bar Associations, which
in turn addressed the Basque Lawyers’ Council.
The latter issued a resolution that was very critical
of the decision by the Court. We know that the
Madrid Bar Association has also expressed itself
in a similar vein.
Fifth. - As a consequence of the calls
for backing, the Court issued a decision adjourning
the Trial until January the 30th, 2006, which
evidently still allows too little time to assess
the piece of documentary evidence described above
with full guarantees.
In view of all the above, the Association
of which I am president has agreed to call on
this General Council to make whichever decisions
and initiate whichever actions it sees fit, in
order to prevent new violations of the right to
a defence in Case 18/98, and to express its support
for the measures requested by the defence lawyers,
aimed at safeguarding this right; including, insofar
as it is necessary, an adjournment of the Trial
until such a time as it can be resumed in accordance
with juridically acceptable guarantees.
Brussels, January
21, 2006.
August Gil Matamala
President of the AED.
Rambla de Catalunya 10, 2º 2ª
08007 Barcelona |
