Like other coastal resorts in Mallorca, Colonia Sant Jordi has its fair share of residences which are rarely occupied other than in the height of summer. These are the apartments, houses and villas which are holiday homes. Their owners might typically only stay in them during the month when Mallorca all but closes for business, August. It is a pleasant place, Colonia Sant Jordi, a pleasant place to have a holiday home. It is busy but not too busy. The wonderful beach of Es Trenc is close at hand. A boat can take you to the island of Cabrera.
Sometimes you wonder about these holiday homes. They seem like a lavish expenditure for only one-twelfth of the year. But then there are those who can afford such lavishness. Aren't there. At one of these holiday homes a photo was taken in August 2010. It was a photo of the owner. He was wearing a light-grey polo t-shirt and a pair of orange shorts. He was in pretty good spirits, it seemed. He was back last year, slightly earlier than normal in July. From his holiday home, an apartment rather than a house, he was able to make trips around the island. He visited Sóller, taking the train and hiring one carriage for himself and friends. The town's mayor, Carlos Simarro, greeted him as though he were royalty. He visited Alcúdia, where he dined at the Bistro Mar with an old friend, one of Telefonica's top men. He visited Palma where he had more to eat; it was a lunch date with an old colleague, the president of the Partido Popular in Palma, Jose Maria Rodríguez.
This summer, he will not be going to his holiday home. The apartment in Colonia will be empty and closed up. The owner will be going somewhere else. To a prison cell.
In August 2010, Jaume Matas, twice president of the Balearics, was in good spirits, despite knowing that not all summers in the future might be filled with days of wine and roses. In the back of his mind, he must have thought that one summer (perhaps several summers) would come along when he couldn't go to Colonia Sant Jordi. Or maybe he believed that those summers would never come. Charges for corruption that he and the rest of the world were aware of in August 2010 were just charges. Ever since, he has projected a persona of innocence, one of disbelief that charges could or should stick. Last July, he gave a press conference at a hotel in Colonia. He was coming on holiday and he was protesting his innocence. A few months earlier, he had been sentenced to nine months in prison for the trafficking of influence, a sentence which, to the surprise of many, had been reduced from six years.
Much has happened since last July. In November, and many of you will recall, there was some very bad weather in Mallorca. One particular storm hit Colonia Sant Jordi. Two pine trees fell down. They had given the holiday home some privacy. Now, it was exposed. The trees came down violently and suddenly. They were a metaphorical fall. It has been a very much slower process, but the fall of Jaume Matas has now been confirmed. He probably still doesn't believe that it's happening. How can they do it to him?
It has taken this length of time because Jaume sought a way of avoiding going to jail. He asked for a pardon. There was astonishment at the request. On what grounds? Astonishment or not, the request was processed. Some thought this process might take years. Maybe Jaume did, too. It didn't. Last week, he discovered that the pardon had been denied. The final say-so was had by his old colleague in national government, Mariano Rajoy, from the days when Jaume was environment minister and when another colleague in government was that top man from Telefonica, Eduardo Zaplana. Strictly speaking, it is the king who grants a pardon or doesn't. He does so on the advice of the government. Felipe was not about to make his first act as king a pardon for a politician found guilty of corruption. Nor would his father have made it his final act. Jaume has not spoken, but what must he be thinking? How could his old friend Mariano have allowed this?
In a few days, maybe this week, Jaume will enter prison. It will be a shock because he has given the impression that he believed it would never happen, that he was somehow above the law or at least capable of moulding the law to let him off. But he wasn't. The law, finally, has seen to it that he is imprisoned. And Jaume may himself, finally, realise that summers in Colonia will not be like they were. This summer might just be the first.
Showing posts with label Pardon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pardon. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2014
Monday, December 16, 2013
The Pardon Game
At the end of September, the journalist Antonio Alemany presented a plea for a pardon to be considered. He was seeking this pardon as a way of avoiding serving a prison sentence of two years and three months that was handed down at the end of a trial which also involved former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas, and which resulted in Alemany having been found guilty of having received irregular payments, made from public funds, for speeches and articles he had written for and about Matas. The pardon plea was presented to the "Audiencia" in Palma, the court which had heard the case. As his sentence was for less than three years, the court had to accept that Alemany's entrance into prison would be suspended, pending the processing of the pardon plea.
Three weeks later, the court had to agree to his not entering prison because there was a possibility that he could serve his sentence but then receive the pardon. The fact that this was a possibility serves to highlight quite how slowly the judicial process can move. The court, in acceding to the plea, laid down certain conditions. One was that Alemany would have to report to police once a month, another was that, if the pardon process had not been resolved by May 2018, the case would go back to court in order to establish whether or not Alemany should indeed enter prison. By May 2018. Over four and a half years later.
It is not for the court to decide on the pardon plea. Its processing is undertaken by the national Ministry of Justice. It gathers all the information relevant to the case and this is then given to the Cabinet (of Mariano Rajoy) to make a decision. There is a minimum period that this processing requires. Approximately one year. As far as there being a maximum period, perhaps May 2018 gives an indication as to how long this might be.
Alemany is not the only defendant to have been found guilty to seek a pardon from the Prime Minister. A former colleague of Mariano Rajoy's in national government is also seeking one. Jaume Matas. He had initially been sentenced to six years for the same case as that involving Alemany. The sentence was reduced to nine months.
There is something of a convention that sentences for first offences of under two years mean that a spell in prison is avoided. Where Matas was concerned, it had looked as though this would be the case, but the court has insisted otherwise. Once it seemed as if he would have to enter prison, the pardon was sought.
In July, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar, went to prison to serve a sentence of five and a half years. In October, her lawyer, responding to confirmation of the sentence by the Balearics High Court, indicated that he might seek either a "recurso de amparo" or a partial pardon for his client. The "amparo", which would, in this instance, be granted by the Constitutional Court, is a legal remedy akin to habeas corpus. The word means protection, and its purpose is to protect citizens and to guarantee that basic rights are not being violated.
It would be unlikely that the Constitutional Court would uphold the amparo plea, as to do so it would need to establish that a fundamental right had been breached. Munar continues to argue her innocence, but her sentence has been upheld and she indeed faces, like Matas, other possible sentencing. Were a pardon to be considered, this wouldn't mean that she could leave prison. Once there, she stays there until or if it is decided she has been there long enough (less than the five and a half years in all likelihood).
It has emerged that, prior to going into prison, Munar sought the help of three leading politicians with the PSOE party. They were the leader of PSOE and former national Interior Minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba, the former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and the one-time director-general of the National Police and Guardia Civil, Joan Mesquida. Help was also sought from a fourth person, the Balearics chief prosecutor. In a letter to Rubalcaba, she pleads with him to intercede on her behalf.
These requests for help amount to requests for influence to be used. As such, they go to the heart of what lies behind corruption - the wielding of influence and the use or abuse of position and power. Are requests for pardons, directed in Matas's case at a former government colleague, not in a sense similar? To be met, they require those in power to not just wield influence but to make the decision.
What justifications are there for pardons? If convictions are wrong, then there are plenty. Have these convictions been, as Munar alludes to in her letters, the result of political persecution? If the convictions are right, then there are surely no justifications.
Three weeks later, the court had to agree to his not entering prison because there was a possibility that he could serve his sentence but then receive the pardon. The fact that this was a possibility serves to highlight quite how slowly the judicial process can move. The court, in acceding to the plea, laid down certain conditions. One was that Alemany would have to report to police once a month, another was that, if the pardon process had not been resolved by May 2018, the case would go back to court in order to establish whether or not Alemany should indeed enter prison. By May 2018. Over four and a half years later.
It is not for the court to decide on the pardon plea. Its processing is undertaken by the national Ministry of Justice. It gathers all the information relevant to the case and this is then given to the Cabinet (of Mariano Rajoy) to make a decision. There is a minimum period that this processing requires. Approximately one year. As far as there being a maximum period, perhaps May 2018 gives an indication as to how long this might be.
Alemany is not the only defendant to have been found guilty to seek a pardon from the Prime Minister. A former colleague of Mariano Rajoy's in national government is also seeking one. Jaume Matas. He had initially been sentenced to six years for the same case as that involving Alemany. The sentence was reduced to nine months.
There is something of a convention that sentences for first offences of under two years mean that a spell in prison is avoided. Where Matas was concerned, it had looked as though this would be the case, but the court has insisted otherwise. Once it seemed as if he would have to enter prison, the pardon was sought.
In July, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar, went to prison to serve a sentence of five and a half years. In October, her lawyer, responding to confirmation of the sentence by the Balearics High Court, indicated that he might seek either a "recurso de amparo" or a partial pardon for his client. The "amparo", which would, in this instance, be granted by the Constitutional Court, is a legal remedy akin to habeas corpus. The word means protection, and its purpose is to protect citizens and to guarantee that basic rights are not being violated.
It would be unlikely that the Constitutional Court would uphold the amparo plea, as to do so it would need to establish that a fundamental right had been breached. Munar continues to argue her innocence, but her sentence has been upheld and she indeed faces, like Matas, other possible sentencing. Were a pardon to be considered, this wouldn't mean that she could leave prison. Once there, she stays there until or if it is decided she has been there long enough (less than the five and a half years in all likelihood).
It has emerged that, prior to going into prison, Munar sought the help of three leading politicians with the PSOE party. They were the leader of PSOE and former national Interior Minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba, the former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and the one-time director-general of the National Police and Guardia Civil, Joan Mesquida. Help was also sought from a fourth person, the Balearics chief prosecutor. In a letter to Rubalcaba, she pleads with him to intercede on her behalf.
These requests for help amount to requests for influence to be used. As such, they go to the heart of what lies behind corruption - the wielding of influence and the use or abuse of position and power. Are requests for pardons, directed in Matas's case at a former government colleague, not in a sense similar? To be met, they require those in power to not just wield influence but to make the decision.
What justifications are there for pardons? If convictions are wrong, then there are plenty. Have these convictions been, as Munar alludes to in her letters, the result of political persecution? If the convictions are right, then there are surely no justifications.
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