Four Albanians released in León for the improper application of the secrecy of the investigation

The Court of León premieres the doctrine of the Constitutional Court that regulates access to proceedings; They had just committed a wave of robberies throughout the northwest of the country and were imprisoned in Villahierro.

The Provincial Court of León has decreed the release of four Albanian nationals who had been arrested and imprisoned in Villahierro for a wave of robberies in the northwest of the country and who, due to an improper application of the new doctrine of the secrecy of the proceedings, were left in a situation of defenselessness when their lawyers, the Alicante lawyers Francisco Galiana and Alicia Grau requested to know the content of the proceedings and the investigating judge denied it under the premise that the secrecy of the case had been decreed for the parties, but not for the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The Court of León therefore joins the new doctrine of the Constitutional Court by which the essential elements of the accusation cannot be hidden from the defenses. The appeal that succeeded alleged the violation of the fundamental rights of the detainees, since prior to the statement their lawyers requested this right “in order to be able to challenge the detention and, where appropriate, the preventive detention, a request that was denied by the judge, denying access because the secrecy of the proceedings had been agreed. They were accused of robbery with force in an inhabited house, forgery of documents and money laundering within a possible criminal organization.

Precautions

“The investigation of crimes, a primary purpose, in a democratic society, sometimes requires the establishment of safeguards when the intervention of the investigated party in judicial proceedings may give rise to interference, manipulation or obstruction of the investigation with the risk of frustrating its objectives”. But the Court apostille. “The Constitutional Court has consistently maintained that secrecy is constitutionally legitimate, but it must be used in a restrictive, proportional, time-limited manner and without emptying the right of defence of content or generating material defencelessness”.

The Court explains that in this case “it is not that insufficient information was given, but that none was given. It is true that the original case was not followed in Plaza No. 2 of Instruction Ponferrada, but in Plaza No. 1 that was later inhibited. In order to preserve and ensure that right of effective defense and more so if a precautionary measure such as imprisonment was to be adopted, “it was required to have sufficient information to reconcile the preservation of that secret (if it still had to be maintained for whatever reasons) with the aforementioned right”. But this omission that causes the lack of defence that is denounced “is not whitewashed because the order by which the detention is agreed is more detailed and accounts for the criminal episodes with which the appellant is linked and which – allegedly – is attributed to his authorship”. What is required is that, at the very least, that detailed and sufficient information be given “ex ante” and not “ex post”. It so happens that one of the suspects was wanted by the Italian justice system and the other by Marbella. The condition of May 1 as a holiday meant that when Villahierro informed the Central Court of Instruction of the situation of the first of the defendants, the judicial body of Madrid was already closed, so it was necessary to release him again.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office requested the provisional dismissal of six other investigated on the understanding that there is not enough evidence to attribute participation in the crimes under investigation.