MADRID: Spain’s Constitutional Court handed down a decision Wednesday rejecting an appeal by Baltasar Garzon, a renowned former human rights judge, against his conviction in an illegal wiretap case that ended his career.
Garzon, who rose to fame for trying to extradite Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet and now heads WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s legal team, was suspended from the judiciary for 11 years after being found guilty by the Supreme Court in February of ordering illegal recordings of corruption suspects talking to their lawyers.
He appealed in May. But in a ruling dated Oct. 29 and published Wednesday, the Constitutional Court rejected the appeal, ruling there was “no manifest existence of a violation of fundamental rights” in the Supreme Court’s decision.
His lawyers said they would now bring a case against Spain at the European Court of Human Rights.
“There’s nothing to do but carry on and insist that the Supreme Court’s decision is gravely unconstitutional on a level never before seen in our democratic state, given that he was convicted of a crime that does not exist in Spanish law,” they said in a statement.
Garzon was convicted of ordering illegal recordings of corruption suspects talking to their lawyers in a case implicating top members of the conservative Popular Party, which is now in government.
The conviction halted the rise of a judge who had taken on dictators, Basque militants and even Al-Qaeda.
In a second trial in February, Garzon was acquitted of charges that he exceeded his authority by investigating mass killings committed during Spain’s Civil War in the late 1930s and the ensuing dictatorship.
Famed Spanish judge Garzon loses appeal
