SPAIN'S justice minister Rafael Catalá has faced calls to resign after criticising the magistrate who voted for the five Pamplona gang-rapists to be acquitted of all charges except that of stealing the victim's mobile phone.
Viewing the videos filmed by the Sevilla gang know as 'La Manada', or 'The Herd', when they took turns to rape an 18-year-old woman who has drunk during the Pamplona Sanfermines bull-running festival, magistrate Ricardo González said it looked as though everyone involved was 'enjoying themselves'.
He described the footage as 'complete disinhibition and explicit sexual acts in an atmosphere of high jinks and enjoyment by all those present', although he conceded that the woman 'did show less activity and expressivity' – but still said he considered she was in a position where she 'could have refused' and that it looked to him like a 'consenting relationship' with no 'threats, violence, humiliation or intention of degrading' the young woman.
Police and prosecutors who viewed the same videos described them as 'highly distressing' and 'harrowing'.
González, however, said to the woman during the court hearing that it was 'clear that she did not feel any pain'.
Minister Catalá says he believed González's vote of discrepancy against his colleagues, who shared his view that there had not been a 'rape' but that the woman had been 'sexually abused', was what had caused most of the public outcry rather than the sentence itself – nine years for each of the five, as opposed to the 20-plus years an offence of rape would attract.
And he cannot understand how the judges' governing body, the General Judicial Power Council (CGPJ), has not taken disciplinary measures against González.
“I'm surprised; mostly that, among all the members of the profession who know of the case, when everyone knows that one of them has particular issues and a somewhat unusual situation, the CGPJ has not taken action – and that as a consequence, unusual results occur,” Catalá said on Radio COPE.
“The CGPJ should have exercised its disciplinary power against the judge who voted in favour of acquitting the accused parties.”
He said the matter was 'extremely delicate' and that the regional high court of justice in Navarra 'knows the situation very well', meaning the CGPJ 'should have taken preventive action'.
“It's not about disciplining a judge for a given verdict, or a dissenting vote – that's par for the course in their job – but the Council's independent role is that of vouching for the quality of all members of the profession, and they have a responsibility here.”
Catalá was reluctant to go as far as to say that the judge in question should be struck off, but his radio interview responses strongly hinted at this: “The CGPJ's role is to ensure that whoever practises is in full control of their faculties...I've heard that this is a person who has a few disciplinaries to his name and that he has issues.”
The minister says the 140-page verdict 'cannot have another 200 pages on an individual dissenting vote which includes very inappropriate expressions', and that this is what he believes has created social uproar around the world.
Full details of González's 'issues' the minister referred to are not known, but it has been confirmed he was fined repeatedly and then suspended without pay for six months back in 2001 because of 'unreasonable delays' in processing his cases since the late 1990s.
On one occasion, he took 14 months to write up a verdict for a divorce case.
But the CGPJ says González has not been disciplined in the last four years.
In response to Catalá's comments, seven associations of judges and prosecutors have called for him to resign for 'intrusion'.
They say he has 'cast doubt' into the minds of the public about the 'capacity' of one of the judges in the high-profile case, and that he is expected to be objective – any concerns about the actions or abilities of judges should only be voiced by the CGPJ, they say.
The victim, from Madrid, who is now 20, did not want to appeal the sentence because she could not face going through the ordeal she has already suffered – twice, with the rape and the trial – but her solicitor has convinced her to fight the verdict.
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