The undersigned, jurists from various geographical and professional backgrounds who work in the defence of people’s fundamental rights and of the procedural guarantees that must rule any legal proceedings, in view of the judicial macro-proceedings open in the Spanish state against Basque citizens and social and political organisations, as well as of the recently developed laws restricting rights and liberties, have constituted an International Commission aiming to monitor the said proceedings and bring attention to any possible irregularities or violations of fundamental rights that may have occurred or may occur in the future.

The proceedings known as 18/98 and other subsequent ones, due to their nature, the subjects involved, the rights, liberties and procedural guarantees affected and their political and social implications; have caused and continue to cause us great juridicial alarm.

These are macro-proceedings with extremely serious consequences, due to the number of people affected –over two hundred and fifty- the amount of organisations, collectives and businesses which have been outlawed, closed or suspended; due to the volume of the cases, comprising hundreds of tomes, thousands upon thousands of pages; due to the length of the convictions requested and the foreseeable requests, etc.

These are proceedings with more than a hint of political content. We are seriously worried that we may be in the presence of penal proceedings through which the political system, the state, is attempting to punish those it believes to be enemies of the current constitutional order. We believe these may be ad hoc proceedings, initiated with a specific aim and motivated by political opportunity.

These are proceedings which drive us to watch over and safeguard full respect for fundamental rights and procedural guarantees. The actions carried out to date show evidence of violations of rights such as the right to freely associate, freedom of speech and opinion, freedom to demonstrate, the right to be tried by a natural court, the principle of legality, the right to freedom, the right to freely chose legal counsel, inviolability of peoples homes, the right to a legal defence, the right to equal opportunities for a defence, etc. We believe it is necessary to analyse this evidence further.

The laws stemming from the doctrine of these proceedings, such as the new Law of Political Parties, and their effects are a priori restrictions and cutbacks on fundamental rights which must be studied in detail and, if necessary, unreservedly denounced.

The aforementioned considerations lead us to contemplate the need to articulate mechanisms to monitor and, if so required, denounce, the above restrictions and violations of rights and those which may occur in the future. Therefore we have created this Commission, with the intent to ensure that the said fundamental rights and freedoms are upheld.

We also call upon all jurists and defenders of human rights to join efforts with this Commission by subscribing this declaration.

In the Basque Country, 15 February 2005