• Community.Ayuso sees a priority to retake the City of Justice designed by Aguirre, pending the Supreme
  • Courts: A judgment buries the City of Justice in Madrid

Almost 14 years after its creation, the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of the Community of Madrid has finally come into operation this February. At the moment, the 71 psychosocial teams that have already prepared expert appraisals of victims at the request of prosecutors and judges will continue to do so from their physical jobs, although from now on they work in a coordinated manner under the umbrella of the new body.

The forecast is that before the end of May, around 400 workers of this service will be transferred to a central headquarters, which will be located at number 16 of Albasanz Street , next to the San Blas District Criminal Center. The intention of the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso is that this location in a rental property is temporary, because its objective is to resume the project of the ill-fated City of Justice.

In fact, the only one of the 15 avant-garde buildings that came to be built in the megaurban project in Valdebebas during the mandate of Esperanza Aguirre was the one that was going to house the Institute of Legal Medicine. That donut- shaped construction has remained a symbol of the failure of a project in which more than 100 million public euros were invested and for which former director Alfredo Prada and three other senior officials are being investigated for the alleged irregularities committed in the Management of its implementation.

Now at the Puerta del Sol Executive they are waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the appeal filed by Acciona and OHL , the two companies that attended the tender to resume in 2015 the works of a development halted by the crisis in 2009, against the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid that gave the reason to the Community for not finally executing it. The contest was convened during the term of Ignacio González, but his successor in office, Cristina Cifuentes, decided not to go ahead with him because he considered that he had been "vitiated and under suspicion from the beginning" and ended up denouncing the "irregularities" »Of the original project.

The forecast is that the resolution will be known in the coming months and, although regardless of its content, the Regional Executive has already announced that it will resume the project, the ruling will determine the formula chosen to do so. In the Ministry of Justice, Interior and Victims they state that when the decision is known, «the necessary actions to concentrate the buildings of the judicial party of Madrid» will be undertaken in the Valdebebas lands.

Risk assessment units

Meanwhile, the Institute of Legal Medicine is already functioning as such with some changes regarding the activity carried out to date around 400 specialists among forensics, psychologists and social workers. The teams have come to be called risk assessment units that, among other issues, provide “specialized assistance to victims of gender violence” and are responsible for the “design of global and integral action protocols” in these cases.

This is regulated by the Organic Law of the Judicial Branch that contemplates the constitution of these organisms in all the autonomous communities. That of Madrid will also centralize the «expert work» performed by the doctors of the Forensic Anatomical, which will continue in its location of University City.

The 71 social teams in the region made a total of 2,500 reports in 2018 at the request of the courts of gender violence. The annual budget for this service is 5.1 million euros per year.

The Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences was created by decree in May 2006. An order published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid a few weeks ago set February 1 as the definitive date of entry into operation .

Previously, the list of jobs of the new body had been made public and subsequently relocated to officials who have obtained a place in the new body. More than a decade after its conception, it is already a reality, although at the moment it is far from the Valdebebas donuts created ad hoc to host it.

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  • Supreme Court
  • Madrid
  • Ignacio González
  • Esperanza Aguirre
  • Cristina Cifuentes

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