Terrorists who had killed before the Amnesty law of 1977 went free. All political crimes were pardoned by the amnesty. A lot of people were not happy, specially the victims, but it was the price the country decided to pay and paid to bury the past and start a new future united.
Terrorists kept killing and were judged with the last penal code enacted by the Franco regime in 1973. It now turns out it was too lenient and terrorists who have killed lots of people are being set free because “Franco’s penal code was too lenient”. The penal code was reviewed lated and stiffer penalties were prescribed but nothing can be done about terrorists, murderers, rapists and other criminals who were judged with the old code. It did not matter if a terrorist killed one or 23 people, the maximum penalty which could be imposed was 30 years, then you get automatic discounts of time for good behavior, study, work, shopping coupons and what have you and many have done little more than 20 years. Less than a year per murder. And it is all Franco’s fault for being too lenient. Franco just can’t win. He was either too strict or too lenient and sometimes both at the same time.
So, the Franco penal code under which Del Rio was judged has allowed a penalty of under one year per murder.
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Those who want to reopen the past only want to put one side on trial, not the other. And they want to put one side on triel just for political aims because it is all so far in the past that there is no one left to punish.
The socialists started the whole “Historic Memory” revisionism and the effect has been a polarization which had disappeared. The Francoist extreme right had disappeared and was dead and buried but with all this it is undergoing revival and resurgence. Which serves as justification for more rhetoric against them which in turn creates more defensiveness and divisiveness. This is not good for the country, it is just good for the socialists in the very long term. Spain is becoming very divided and the Spanish people are already being the losers.
Reading the linked articles, there seems to be a legitimate concern of some families for what specifically happened to their relatives, rather than a desire for anyone to be prosecuted.
That is just an artificially invented cover. Nobody is objecting to people investigating what happened to their relatives. Well, some are, like the family of poet Garcia Lorca who see the whole thing is just political manipulation and have asked that Lorca be left out of this and not be used for partisan ends.
Oh, yes. Absolutely. It’s completely a trap designed to make the PP look like a throwback to the Franco regime.
In fact it’s such a clumsy, easily avoided trap, that it would require for the whole party to be completely inept to actually allow the issue to make them look worse instead of just going: “sure. Historic Memory. We are all for that.”
The whole “Historic Memory” bullshit was started by Zapatero with very obviously partisan ends. Judge Garzón initiated an indictment and trial of Franco and asked to see his death certificate which is just a clown show. Does anybody not know Franco is dead? (Just ask Chevy Chase.) And you cannot judge a dead man. The whole thing was just political showmanship. The socialists are trying to keep it alive (after running the country into the ground) because that’s all they have. And since they get little traction in Spain they are trying to get the UN, Argentina and other external parties involved.
Spain right now is in terrible state, unemployment is unsustainable, the economy is in shambles, corruption is rampant. What has saved Spain is that it is economically and politically in Europe and the senior partners have imposed some common sense. If it weren’t for that Spain would be going the way of venezuela.
So, with the economy in shambles, with a judicial system which is extremely inefficient (we will not mention corrupt because inefficient is the worst of it) and which is one of the causes of the present state of Spain, you would think the judges would try to speed up the resolution of cases which generally takes so long as to be worthless. But no, the judges need to punish Franco and the likes of him.
The Audiencia Nacional (Court) has indicted Chinese premier Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and six other Chinese leaders for “genocide in Tibet”. (Link in Spanish.)
Spain is in shambles, the judiciary is a disaster and a joke and thes guys want to fix China or Franco. No interest in fixing Spain today. Or maybe they’ve just given up. Clowns, that’s what they are. The country is like a bad joke.
Yes, I agree, it’s all partisan showmanship. And again, for the trick to work, it requires for the other guys to fall for it in the most retarded manner and start acting like they have something to hide. It boggles the mind that they do. It really does.
Oh, don’t worry, we aren’t going the way of Venezuela. Basically because, while Venezuela enjoys a similar level of corruption and incompetence that we do, at least they have all that oil to fall back on.
I WISH we were in the situation of Venezuela.
But make no mistake, Spain has not been “saved”. Far from it. Instead of creating jobs and investment, some flimsy paper has been applied over the cracks by firing and destroying a lot of public institutions so at least it LOOKS like the government is doing something. It’s a bit of crappy makeup to cover a bleeding wound.
While that smacks of false dichotomy (whether the Dictatorship ends up being symbolically punished or not, doesn’t actually affect the shambles that the judiciary system are) I would like to point out that the dismal state of our legal system also stems from the decades of Franco rule and a hurried Constitutional system.