The Garzón trials: An ALBA editorial
Baltasar Garzón in New York City, 14 May 2011. Photo Richard Bermack
(En castellano.) If there were credit rating agencies devoted to evaluating the moral health of a country’s institutions, yesterday “Spain” would almost certainly have been downgraded to junk-bond status. Its Supreme Court opened the first of three trials against Judge Baltasar Garzón, thus initiating a three-pronged attack on judicial independence and offering up a spectacular exhibition before the entire world of how, despite more than three decades of democratic reform, personal, professional and political vendettas still have a place in the country’s highest institutions. While Spain’s government demands austerity from the people of Spain to placate Moodys and company, its Supreme Court severely damages the nation’s moral credit rating, by obstinately pressing forward in what is clearly an exercise in account settling.
