Carlos Aránguez, lawyer for Juana Rivasis pending the resolution of the appeal that has been filed against the disciplinary file of the Granada Bar Association that imposed a 45-day suspension from the practice of law and in which he requests that said decision be revoked.
Said suspension occurred after Aránguez described as partial the action of the head of the Criminal Court 1 of Granada, Manuel Piñarwho sentenced the neighbor from Maracena (Granada) for the abduction of her two minor children.
In the appeal, to which Efe has had access and which has to be resolved by the Andalusian council of bar associations, this lawyer considers that the agreement adopted by the Ethics Commission of the Granada association is “absolutely inconsistent with the Law” and with the reality of the facts, for which reason he requests that the suspension of his practice as a lawyer be revoked.
Specifically, it details that said agreement “clearly violates” the principle of classification and legality recognized in the Constitution, which states that no one can be convicted or punished for actions or omissions which, at the time of their occurrence, do not constitute a crime, misdemeanor or administrative infraction according to current legislation. In addition, it points out that there was no infraction classified in the applicable regulations -the Lawyers Statute- that would allow sanctioning the facts that constitute the object of the disciplinary procedure.
“This is an act of private life, of information disseminated as a free citizen, in the free exercise of my freedom of expression and right to information, since when a lawyer speaks in the media, he is not exercising the law”, indicates in his appeal Aránguez, who recalls that he is a doctor of Law and that his main professional activity is teaching as a tenured professor of Criminal Law.
Right to assess a legal act
As a lawyer, he adds, he has the right to express his assessment – correct or not – of any legal act, always using correct forms from an academic point of view.
“Therefore, he has every right in the world as a jurist to describe Judge Piñar’s actions in the execution of the case as partial. Juana Rivas case“, he has indicated, while considering that the Granada Bar Association cannot evaluate an action that it considers “apart from his activity as a member of the bar”.
On the other hand, it recalls that the Constitutional Court has enshrined the right to criticize judicial proceedings since its first resolutions, “as long as formally insulting expressions are not used.” Likewise, it insists that saying that a judge is “manifestly biased” in a specific case is an “absolutely foreseeable criticism in said position”, that it has “factual” grounds and that what is stated constitutes “a matter of public importance”.
As a result of the decision of the Granada Bar Association, several hundred jurists, including lawyers, law professors and attorneys, signed a manifesto against the 45-day suspension imposed, understanding that the sanction seriously violates the right to freedom of expression and freedom of information from one of his associates.
Expansion of the complaint
Precisely this week, according to judicial sources informed Efe, it has become known that Judge Piñar has expanded the complaint for insults and slander that he presented against Aránguez, after both the magistrate himself and the lawyer have already given a judicial statement before the Investigating Court 5.
The expansion of the complaint is related to the resolutions of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) for which the complaint that, in turn, Juana Rivas – who has even requested protection to the Constitutional Court– formalized for alleged prevarication against Judge Manuel Piñar.
Aránguez attributed to the judge animosity towards his client for “personal reasons”, although the TSJA maintained in an order, to which Efe had access last October, that the “attribution of ideological motivations to a resolution” cannot open “the door of the prevarication, if the ideology does not supplant the application of the law”.
After Rivas’ lawyer was sanctioned by the Granada Bar Association for publicly stating that the magistrate had been biased, Piñar sued him and Granada Examining Court 5 ordered the Police to report on the content of a WhatsApp group that Aránguez shares with a hundred journalists.