By Guillermo Medina
MADRID, Dec 22 2014 (IPS)

Political and institutional corruption has become the main concern of Spanish citizens after unemployment and the dramatic social consequences of the economic crisis, according to opinion polls.

The systemic nature of corruption – recognised by most analysts but denied by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing People’s Party (PP) – is coinciding exasperatingly with the impoverishment of most of society and the enrichment of a few of its members, leading to a rejection of current politics and institutions that verges on social rebellion.

In the 2011 municipal elections, 39 percent of candidates under investigation for corruption throughout Spain were re-elected, according to a report by the Politico analytical group. Some notoriously corrupt officials even claimed that the “favourable judgment of the electorate” was a kind of absolution.“The systemic nature of corruption is coinciding exasperatingly with the impoverishment of most of society and the enrichment of a few of its members, leading to a rejection of current politics and institutions that verges on social rebellion”

But indifference towards corruption was transformed into intolerance when the crisis arrived and scandals began to emerge.

In October 2004, a poll by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) found that only 0.6 percent of respondents mentioned corruption among their main concerns; by October 2014, according to the same source, 42.3 percent were naming it as their second-highest concern.

Citizens have now made a direct connection between corruption and the crisis, profligacy, unemployment, impoverishment, inequality and a political style. Irritated and provoked by their observation of the obscene ostentation and impunity of the corrupt, many have reached the conclusion that it will not be possible to eradicate corruption without profound change.

In the view of many Spanish citizens, corruption has its origins in a model of party politics that reduces democracy to a mere mechanism for deciding – every four years – which party will occupy the seats of power, with no substantial change for the people.

The meteoric rise of Podemos (“We Can”), the movement and political party proposing radical change, is therefore not surprising. Founded in January this year, Podemos secured 25 percent of voter intentions in a survey published on Dec. 7 by the newspaper ‘El País’.

Due to deficiencies in the electoral law and certain flaws in their original make-up, the other parties have thwarted the wishes of the electorate and have created a crisis of representation.

Frequently, lax laws, long criminal proceedings, short statutes of limitations and the most varied tricks of judicial ingenuity conspire to grant impunity to conduct that is harmful to the common interest and causes public scandals.

No wonder Carlos Lesmes, president of the General Council of the Judiciary, said recently: “We have a criminal system devised to penalise the petty thief, but not the large fraudster; it does not work in cases such as we are seeing now, in which there is so much corruption.”

People today are aware of the relationship between politics and corruption. One of the most pernicious effects of this omnipresent phenomenon is that it monopolises and conditions political debate, weakening institutions like Congress and the government itself, which should be focusing their attention on solving the country’s crucial problems.

Politics are deadlocked. Accords have become unviable because the country is divided by two contrary and reactive forces, between those who are enraged at the “caste” and are seeking a radical alternative, and those who are frightened by what they rightly consider to be a threat to their interests and prioritise attacking their rivals, while trying to convince us that they are fighting corruption.

At this point, the corruption and disrepute of the political class has resulted not only in the growth of Podemos, but is perceived as a curse even by the business community, which sees it as a hindrance to economic recovery.

A survey among the 500 participants at the recent National Congress of Family Business awarded only 1.08 out of 9 points to the political situation. Last year the result was 1.66 out of 9.

Democracy does not create corrupt people, but corrupt people end up corrupting democracy, and then corruption becomes a structural, systemic problem. Multiple abscesses turn into gangrene and after that, ending corruption means cleansing the entire system.

Fighting corruption is only possible in the broader context of political and institutional regeneration. So it seems to those who demand regeneration, and because they feel that the established parties are lacking in political will, they state their intention to vote for Podemos.

The anti-corruption measures proposed so far by the government are uninspiring and lack depth because they do not make the necessary connection between corruption and political regeneration. The opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) goes further than the PP although its proposals are also inadequate and somewhat vague.

It is impossible to fight corruption effectively without reforming the bipartisan model, introducing internal democracy and carrying out a thorough reform of the system of justice to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, as judges and magistrates are demanding.

Political corruption goes hand-in-hand with the exercise of power, whether in Andalusia (PSOE), Catalonia (Convergence and Union), Valencia (PP) or Spain as a whole (PP). Therefore the existence of regulatory institutions, a real separation of powers, and free and independent media are essential for combating it.

Even if it is accepted that ending poverty and unemployment is more important than regeneration, I do not see how the former can be achieved without the latter.

The idea that the economic crisis has generated a political crisis is widespread, but the reverse is equally true, so we are up against the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

For a time, the Spanish government has tried to face the economic crisis, leaving aside the political crisis, with dire consequences. Unfortunately the Prime Minister does not take this view and believes instead that the long-heralded economic recovery will be the panacea for all ills. The results are clear for all to see. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Poster demanding justice 10 years after the death of journalist José Couso. Courtesy: Family, Friends and Colleagues of José Couso

By Inés Benítez
MALAGA, Spain, Feb 24 2014 (IPS)

The pursuit of universal jurisdiction in Spain is drawing to a close because of a bill that will entail the dismissal of over a dozen criminal investigations in the country’s courts and will make it very difficult to open new cases of crimes against humanity.

The rightwing government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the governing People’s Party (PP) were able to fast-track the reform of the Organic Law of the Judiciary Power in parliament thanks to their absolute majority, and are swiftly heading to block universal justice proceedings in one of the countries that has enforced them most.“Spain will become a paradise for impunity.” -- Ignacio Jovtis, Amnesty International

A reform bill, rejected by all the opposition parties, was presented on Feb. 11, with the effect that requests for reports and other legal procedures were blocked. And on Feb. 17 the Ministry of Justice asked Congress for measures to accelerate the process even further.

The bill will be rushed through parliament after debate in a single plenary session, it was decided on Thursday Feb. 20, again with the votes of the PP alone, ensuring its speedy entry into force.

If it is approved, “Spain will become a paradise for impunity,” Ignacio Jovtis, an expert on universal jurisdiction who works for the Spanish chapter of Amnesty International, told IPS.

In his view, the proposal “does not only limit the principle of universal jurisdiction, it makes it disappear.”

On Thursday Feb. 27 the senate will vote on the bill.

The principle of universal jurisdiction empowers national courts to prosecute and try a number of serious crimes that affect the international community, independently of where they were committed and the nationality of the perpetrators and victims.

Spain’s proposed reform is criticised by over one hundred NGOs and national and international institutions that stated on Wednesday Feb. 19 that its approval “would be a devastating blow to universal jurisdiction and a violation of Spain’s international obligations.”

The government has treated the reform as a matter of urgency since Feb. 10, when a judge of the Spanish National Court issued international arrest warrants for five former leaders of the Chinese Communist Party on charges of genocide, torture and crimes against humanity during crackdowns on the people of Tibet in the 1980s and 1990s.

“It’s an ad hoc reform to shut down cases that are awkward for Spain,” lawyer Lydia Vicente Márquez, the executive director of Rights International Spain, told IPS.

The reform bill imposes “impossible” conditions on Spanish courts wishing to investigate and prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes of a universal nature, she said.

When it is approved, Spanish judges will only be competent to investigate these crimes in cases against Spanish citizens or foreigners resident in Spain, or who are in Spain and whose extradition has been denied by the Spanish authorities, the text says.

“The economic agenda takes precedence over human rights,” Jovtis said.

This reform is a step towards impunity in criminal policy, he said, and “it may also be an invasion of the Judicial Power by the legislative branch,” because parliament would establish the dismissal of cases already open until the new conditions are met, according to its final transitional provision.

Amnesty researcher Jovtis predicted that the majority of the approximately 15 cases before the Spanish National Court based on universal jurisdiction will be shelved because of the reform.

One of these may be the case of José Couso, a Spanish journalist who died in Baghdad on Apr. 8, 2003 during an attack by the U.S. army on the hotel where independent foreign reporters were staying. A Spanish judge has indicted three U.S. military personnel as responsible for his death.

“We are angry and worried. This reform is a complete botch-up and it’s made to measure to dismiss our case,” Javier Couso, the victim’s brother and a member of the Family, Friends and Colleagues of José Couso, told IPS.

The journalist’s brother pointed out that Rajoy met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington before the reform was proposed.

He also said that lawmakers should not be the ones to decide the provisional dismissal of cases, because that is the province of judges.

Couso did not rule out taking a complaint to Spain’s Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg or courts in other countries, if the case against the U.S. military personnel is closed because of the reform.

Couso’s family met with spokespersons from all the Spanish parliamentary parties on Feb. 11 to express their deep concern about the bill. The main opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), promised to study the possibility of appealing the bill on the grounds of unconstitutionality.

Jovtis said it was “shameful” that Spain, “a reference point and a beacon of hope for some countries in Latin America,” should undo what it has done and go against the European and global trend towards incorporating the principle of universal jurisdiction in national legislation.

On Friday Feb. 21, Argentine judge María Servini, acting in a case against crimes committed during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), asked the Spanish justice authorities to exhume the body of a victim of the Franco era.

The deceased in question is Timoteo Mendieta Alcalá, a trade unionist who was executed in the cemetery of the central city of Guadalajara in 1939, and is buried in a common grave along with 17 others.

“Some 84.4 percent of countries in the world have universal jurisdiction legislation and allow judicial investigations on the basis of this principle for at least one type of crime,” said Amnesty’s Jovtis.

Spain “was formerly in the vanguard” of universal justice and “now we should not let it  fall behind,” according to the over one hundred associations signing the joint declaration against the reform bill that was handed in to the European Parliament by the International Campaign for Tibet.

In addition to the universal justice cases on geniocide in Tibet and the death of José Couso in the Iraq War, the Spanish National Court is currently investigating cases of genocide in Guatemala, Western Sahara and Rwanda.

It is also investigating the murder of Spanish priest Ignacio Ellacuría in El Salvador in 1989, and of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria in Chile in 1976, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

“There is an international consensus that what are regarded as the gravest crimes should not go unpunished. We do not want impunity, as this would mean they could happen again,” concluded Márquez.