10 March 2109
Third ruling of the Constitutional Court rejecting with traces and surprising arguments the appeals of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Falun Gong and the Tibet case against the reform of the Universal Justice law due to pressure from the Chinese Government.
The CAT reports:
The ruling of the Constitutional Court (TC) which has just buried the Tibet case before the Spanish courts, which had been announced since the end of December. Indeed, The judgment of 20 December 2018 of the TC declared that the reform of universal jurisdiction carried out by Rajoy's conservative government was in accordance with the Constitution, which foreshadowed the debacle that was to come.. The Constitutional judges, They rejected the unconstitutionality appeal filed by the socialist deputies. Even so, despite admitting, both the change in interpretive criteria of universal justice since the ruling of 2005 of the Guatemala case, as the legal reform of the 2014 had radically changed victims' access to justice, They concluded that the legislative power has all the power to operate this restrictive modification. That the popular action has been suppressed, that it is considered that international law is not above internal law, that the procedures are retroactively archived or that this legal reform was motivated by pressure from a foreign country, China, have not been obstacles to approving the new law.
In this way, Since the end of December, it was expected that the different cases that had been admitted for protection proceedings in the Constitutional Court were irremediably settled.. And so it has been, The first issue to fall was the other one that bothered China, that of crimes committed against Falun Gong practitioners. And the following month the Second Chamber of the TC met again to agree to give the last burial to the desire for justice of the victims of the Tibetan genocide.
Despite this new political obstruction and contamination and although the prospects do not invite confidence, There is still a last resort that the CAT will exhaust to the end by going to the European Court of Human Rights in the coming months.
Legal commentary on the argument – cut and paste – of the Constitutional Court:
The sentence that has just been formally communicated to the CAT as main plaintiffs, to the Casa del Tíbet Foundation as co-plaintiff and to Thubten Wangchen as private accusation and which is dated 25 February 2019, dispatches in 28 pages the appeal for protection. It is striking that practically the entire ruling is a cut and paste of its background and the ruling of December 2018 of the TC. Everything had already been well tied up and the TC only has to reproduce the same arguments. Definitely, that the genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been investigated for years cannot be prosecuted in Spain, since not even the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party denounced, nor do they have Spanish nationality, nor do they habitually reside in our country. And the fact that there is a Spanish victim, the plaintiff Thubten Wangchen, It is no longer a reason to continue with the procedure., since at the time he suffered persecution by the Chinese authorities he had not yet acquired Spanish nationality. In addition, It is considered that the retroactive filing of the case has not implied denying access to justice to the victims, since the mere fact of having been able to appeal to the Constitutional Court implies the opposite.
The CAT thinks:
It's not just Tibet; with three consecutive sentences, the TC confirms the definitive termination of universal jurisdiction in Spain and specifically, cases directed against leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, those of Tibet and Falun Gong. The timing of these sentences does not go unnoticed after more than 4 years of waiting without response. The victims of the Couso cases are also left in the gutter, Ashraf refugee camp in Iraq, Guantanamo, CIA flights, Palestine Freedom Flotilla, SS members in Nazi death camps.
Nor does the processing of a new JU law seem to be having a good time and the rulings of the TC come to shed light on the doubt. Despite the consensus that was achieved in the rejection of the PP reform in 2014 where the possibility of moving forward with all cases of justice and the agreement to restore and expand this law was drowned, It seems that now the application of International Law and the JU in Spain is decided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as convenient economically and diplomatically.
The investigative lawyer and editor of the Tibet complaints, José Elias Esteve Moltó (U. from Valencia), has spoken about the news: "El primer paso dado por la reforma en solitario del PP de la justicia universal queda avalado con estas sentencias del Tribunal Constitucional. Spain despite having ratified treaties on the protection of human rights, has definitively ignored its mandatory international obligations. It is more than evident that the Tibetan victims of this genocide have been a hindrance to the State, which has obviously prioritized the demands of the international economic agenda set by large corporations.. With decisions like this, the foundations on which a rule of law is based and its values are decomposed. Even so, and being aware of the adversities and the interests defended by politicians and jurists who are unrelated to the suffering of the victims., the fight continues, y se acudirá al Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de Estrasburgo".
The director of CAT, Alan Cantos has given the following opinion on the matter:: "Día triste cuando el Tribunal Constitucional (TC) ruling that there is no problem in bowing to China's economic pressures, ignore binding international treaties by changing mandatory laws that states cannot change, and unfairly apply retroactivity in cases open for years. El apoyo del TC a que la obstaculización permanente a todos los casos "incómodos" It is not against the Spanish Constitution, it is the final surrender of legal and ethical principles to economic interests.. Gracias a la sentencia "copia y pega" of the TC we have gone from being references and pioneers in the application of International Law in the most serious crimes in the world, to the caboose; all of which creates more impunity and abandonment of victims, leaving them by the wayside in cases of genocide, torture, war crimes, etc, committed in powerful countries, pasts and futures. A shame and bad precedent for our democracy.”
The CAT concludes:
In summary, These are some disastrous and sad judicial news to commemorate 60 years of illegal occupation and unpunished genocide that is now supported by Spanish law and justice.
End of Press Release
