BUSH: "HA HA!"
Posted on 05/19/2009 12:03:03 PM PDT by Lorianne
Madrid - By an overwhelming majority, Spain's parliament Tuesday evening approved a bill to curb the country's judges' controversial role in pursuing human rights cases worldwide.
The vote was 339 in favour to 8 opposed to a bill to curb the powers of the National Court's to pursue human rights violations around the world.
The reform bill stipulates that in the future, the court should only act on cases when Spanish nationals are affected.
The huge majority for the bill came after the Socialist government and the conservative opposition had agreed on the text of the reform.
The vote comes amid rising pressure on the Madrid government to restrict judges' scope for investigating alleged human rights crimes in other countries, a crusading role which the Spanish judiciary embarked on for itself a decade ago.
The Spanish courts' actions have stirred controversy in several countries. The National Court is now investigating about a dozen cases affecting eight countries: the United States, China, Guatemala, El Salvador, Rwanda, Morocco, Germany and Israel.
In the days leading up to the vote, the presidnet of the judges' group CGPJ, Carlos Divar, stated that 'We cannot become the judicial cops of the world.'
Human rights activists however argued that Spanish judges had played an important role in increasing human rights accountability.
The Spanish judiciary first became known for its interest in issues of universal justice when National Court judge Baltasar Garzon made a vain attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London in 1998.
Ho ho, whoop de doo... who gives a gold-darn about what some togged up judge in Spain orders? Not I, and, I suspect, not any of the objects of these “investigations” either.
If I remember correctly, Pinochet essentially gave the Spanish judges the finger, and the British (he was in England at the the time the Spaniards asked for extradition), backed him up.
BUSH: "HA HA!"
Not a good day for the Moonbats. Maybe they will appeal this to the Federation; I heard the Vulcans are tough on torture.
I was listening to various arguements leading up to this. The reason for these powers, initially, was the desire of the left to punish their enemies, but they don’t need these powers beause they have been doing that just fine by tearing down statues of Franco or anybody associated with him, rewriting Spanish history, etc. In the meantime, the judicial thing got so out of hand that Spain (well, Spanish left-wing judges) was going around filing charges against anyone and everyone who disagrees with the left and was looking completly idiotic as a result.
Even the Spanish Socialists realized that this had gotten out of hand and was doing nothing but making Baltasar Garzon the master of the universe. Nobody wanted to go there...
"The Spanish judiciary first became known for its interest in issues of universal justice when National Court judge Baltasar Garzon made a vain attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London in 1998.I thought Spanish meddling began 500 years before that with Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.
...3....2...1...Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
The judges were actually endangering the privileges of Spanish diplomats abroad, and even the privilege of Spaniards to freely travel to other countries.
please see the word in bold to find out why this law was passed.
Neurotic nut-jobs world-wide, take note: this was NOT a close vote!
Human rights activists however argued that Spanish judges had played an important role in increasing human rights accountability.
Human Rights activists can kiss my ascot... who elected them?
As for the judges themselves --- any megalomaniacs among them should be relieved of duties. I am sure there is a legal process to do exactly that.
If any special interest group, sane or insane, can hijack a free country's judiciary, why bother with representation and elections?
What law would that be?
The law that gave Spanish judges jurisdiction over the entire world?
I missed the international referendum on that...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.