Teresa López Pavón Sevilla
Seville
Updated Monday, February 19, 2024-04:07
The murder of two civil guards in Barbate has revived the debate about the lack of resources in the fight against drug trafficking. Judge Manuel Estrella has spent almost his entire judicial career in the province of Cádiz and has been president of the Provincial Court since 2011. He therefore knows well the environment in which he carries out his work and points to the need to reform the peripheral structure. of Justice to prevent the newly incorporated judges from taking over on an interim basis and for a short time some courts with limited resources and to which complex cases linked to drug mafias come.
Was the dismantling of OCON Sur, the police unit to fight drug trafficking in Campo de Gibraltar, a surprise to judges and prosecutors? Well, we still have no official news about it. Nobody has told us anything about it. The problem of drug trafficking in the countryside of Gibraltar is endemic. For many reasons: because it is an area where there has always been smuggling; because it has a special geographical location; because 14 kilometers away is the largest hashish producer in the world. This is where the bulk of the hashish consumed in Europe enters. It also has the port of Algeciras, which is a door open to the entire world. And Gibraltar doesn't help either. And the same happens with Barbate or Sanlúcar de Barrameda, which, together with Campo de Gibraltar, are the three centers of drug trafficking in southern Spain. Young people with no prospect of having a decent job end up finding in drug trafficking a way to obtain an easy and high economic profit. What did the arrival of OCON Sur mean in 2018? It was a happy idea that has given good results, as demonstrated the 12,000 arrests made. But from the first moment we warned that it would generate a funnel in the Justice, despite the fact that some additional body was created and, for example, one more place was provided in the section that the Court has in Algeciras. What else would be needed in the administration of Justice so that this funnel does not occur? Well, we need resources, we need more officials, we need more prosecutors and above all, we need to reorganize the administration of Justice. If a court like the one in Barbate suddenly receives a complex case, with a hundred defendants, it melts it down. And that cannot be tolerated. It is necessary to create once and for all trial courts, large or medium-sized, where judges can specialize, where they can easily replace each other. The nineteenth-century system that we have established in Spain has a completely archaic territorial organization. In the 21st century it does not make any sense. You think that it is not operational to have courts spread throughout the towns. There should be Courts of Instance in the provincial capitals. And, in a province as unique as Cádiz, there could be three: that of the capital, that of Jerez and that of Campo de Gibraltar. I have heard that Barbate has become a "cursed destination" and that the officials are there on essential time to get a transfer to any other place. Look, the judges are passing through there. And, in many cases, it is their first destination. As soon as they have the opportunity they go to a better place. It is an objective data. And the stability of the entire staff, that of the judge, that of the officials, is essential because, otherwise, no one takes responsibility for anything. And when there are no means and a cause of a certain magnitude is assumed, the accused is guaranteed the mitigation of
undue delays.
, because this is what the Supreme Court has established. It is not the defendant's fault that a court does not function properly. But the result is a real nonsense. And we still have many pending cases derived from the actions of OCON Sur. The last trial held in Algeciras, with 150 accused, worked miraculously well because everyone made a great effort, including the Board, which set up a special room. And because almost half of the defendants accepted a sentence of conformity. If not, it would not have been possible. What effect does the fight against money laundering have? Look, I usually think that the only thing that really hurts these networks is having their assets seized. Because the penalties for the crime against public health seem to have been assumed. And in that sense, the autonomous confiscation procedure has also worked well, so that no convicted person can benefit from the profits obtained, even if they are in the name of third parties. Losing their homes, their vehicles, seems to hurt them more than going to prison for four years unfortunately. The creation of OCON Sur had to do with the enormous social impact that the assault on the La Línea hospital had to free two injured detainees. Then it was said that "the principle of authority had been lost." Are we in a similar situation? I don't want to alarm the population in the least. The principle of authority is very socially devalued in general. And you always have to be careful so that things don't get out of hand. Does the death of two civil guards murdered in Barbate mean that things have gotten out of hand or was it a combination of unfortunate circumstances? Well, a bit of both. To begin with, the drug boats entered the port to take refuge from the storm, which is already an extraordinary circumstance. But what happened is also a consequence of an absolute contempt for the functions of the Civil Guard and for their lives. Police pressure in Cádiz forced the drug traffickers to look for other access routes through neighboring provinces such as Málaga, Seville or Huelva. In the end, the cork never sinks but ends up appearing somewhere else. Well, the mafias are always ahead. But, no, you can't lose heart. You have to fight and stay firm. Does the lack of resources make the teams that fight against drugs more vulnerable to corruption? Look, the cases that emerge are absolutely anecdotal. We cannot convey the idea that it is a generalized situation. The vast majority of agents and officials break their hearts in this fight. That is not the problem. He believes that it would be reasonable for the National Court to take on the causes of drug trafficking. Not all of them, of course. But it does seem to me that currently the criteria applied when a conflict of powers occurs is too restrictive. It already assumes the causes that have implications in different provinces,but it is not always easy to demonstrate these links and perhaps it should be less restrictive in the assessment of their competencies.