Lessons need to be learned, right now
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By h.b. - Mar 30, 2008 - 11:17 AM
The Mari Luz tragedy has highlighted, all too dramatically, what can go wrong in the justice system here in Spain.

EDITORIAL COMMENT

When cases such as this come to light it is no wonder why the general public get angry. It is no exaggeration to say that a chain of errors led to the alleged killer of the five year old from Huelva, Santiago del Valle, being on the street, despite two firm and a third sentence handed down against him, all on charges of child sexual abuse or an attempt on it.

We live in a country where those of us who are late on a mortgage or other credit payment find that we can instantly no longer get credit anywhere. The system closes all its doors against us. But here the public sees how a paedophile avoided even a single day in prison because of the inefficiencies and errors of first the judicial, and secondly the police system. Santiago del Valle even went on television during this time demanding better assisted housing be granted to him. Mari Luz’s father, Juan José, was not exaggerating when he said that what has happened is shameful for the Spanish state.

Children such as Mari Luz Cortés need to be protected by society at large, and here the Spanish system has let her down all too tragically. We now know that the General Council for Judicial Power had previously noted delays in some of the actions of the judge who heard the first case against Santiago del Valle, for the sexual abuse of his own five year old daughter, no less. Judge Rafael Tirado in Penal Court 1 in Sevilla was fined back in 1995 for negligence in another similar case, but despite those earlier errors being detected he was allowed to continue in the post and make the same mistakes again. As Juan José has said, ‘No more ridiculous excuses’.

Now three judges on the General Council have called for an ‘urgent and immediate’ meeting. It is much needed and its findings need to be made in complete transparency to the public. Effective measures and safeguards need urgently to be put into place to ensure that a tragedy such as the one which befell Mari Luz Cortés can not be allowed to happen again.

The judicial system in such abuse cases needs to work as efficiently as the one which identifies, controls and punishes bad debtors, simply because people such as Santiago del Valle lose all their credit and goodwill from society at large at that first moment that they carry out any abuse.

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