[Opinión] Old courts, blind justice

Luis Romero Santos | 01/02/2021 6:47 | Updated: 01/31/2021 10:16 PM

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When I go to those courts and get out of the taxi, I walk holding my briefcase, as if it were thirty years ago, when I was beginning to practice law.

It is going back in time and recalling the first years of the profession.

Not long ago I met at the entrance of the judicial building with the parents of a victim of sexual abuse who were summoned as witnesses at my request as a private prosecution.

I went up the stairs with him and she took the elevator along with an official who was a friend of the family.

We reached the third floor and to the left at the back we saw the sign that indicated that the investigating court was nearby.

I informed one of the officials of my presence with my clients and he told me that he would replace the colleague who had that file as he was on sick leave.

When we were waiting outside, we were in a narrow corridor that has become accessible next to several metal cabinets that contain the court files.

After a short wait, the lady was first called to testify.

When we waited for the judge to arrive at the judicial office next to the tables occupied by other officials, I commented to my client that except for the windows that had been recently renovated, the rest of the furniture and facilities could be several decades old and could even be from the sixties, when the building was built.

I pointed out to my client the off-white floor tiles, the cabinets, the tables, the air conditioner, noticing her at the gray fan next to the clerk who attended us saying: “It reminds me of my grandfather’s.”

It reminded me of the one in the barbershop in my town, I could almost hear its relaxing sound on a summer afternoon.

The door of the judicial office was open, the telephone ring was constant until they were attended by the civil servants, other officials from other courts entered requesting some information, and also lawyers, attorneys and some lost citizen asking for a certain court after having walked many times around the same floor.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE INSTRUCTION JUDGE

And finally, the investigating judge arrived, seeking the attention of the justice officer who was going to be in charge of writing the testimony of my two witnesses. The veteran public servant told the judge:

– Don Evaristo, these are the two witnesses who were summoned at ten, the parents of the complainant.

Directing the judge his gaze towards me, exclaiming:

– Well, Mr. Lawyer, I imagine that they will have little to say, because I have admitted this trial procedure but it makes little sense, I don’t know why they have come.

I replied that these witnesses were reference points and I was going to ask them about the date on which their daughter told them what happened, the psychological treatment she had undergone, her changes in character, as well as the conversations they had had with the defendant in the that even he had admitted to having abused other minors, in addition to other issues that could derive from the above.

And His Honor, already enlightened, replied:

– Then go ahead, let them say what they know, but that of the reference witnesses … Let’s see, what are they going to say?

And that the testimony had already been admitted and indicated, which is why we were summoned there that morning.

– Then you take care of it! –Ordered the instructor, addressing the official, then leaving without closing the door or saying goodbye to those present.

The court clerk was not there either, I prefer to use this term.

SURPRISE

I was surprised by this attribution to the officer, since although I had witnessed this type of procedural irregularities on many occasions, even in the statements of those investigated, it had been years since I had seen these scenes typical of other times.

When the witness had answered some of my questions and I was trying to ask the next one, the official allowed himself to observe that this new question might be impertinent.

I told him that I believed it to be correct but I did not want to correct him by announcing that he did not have the power to determine or not the origin of a question in the absence of His Honor.

Of course, I was not going to record my protest in the minutes either, given the special procedural situation.

When the next witness passed – “Tell your husband to come in” – the official was interested in whether the questions were going to be the same (sic) and I answered that they would be very similar.

Satisfied with my answer, the officer clarified:

– Man! It is to take advantage of the answers of the first witness and thus I am correcting the answers that are different.

That reminded me of a practice followed by some police and civil guards. I don’t think that even if I asked the same questions, the answers would have been exactly the same.

In fact, I asked some new questions when I received different answers. Some of these, very important, since the father of the minor referred to a conversation with the investigated in which he denied having abused the daughter of his interlocutor but did admit to having touched another fifteen-year-old girl.

A QUESTIONABLE WORK ORGANIZATION

Said procedural act took place with the substantive conversations of the two officials who worked at their desks, the telephone calls and the visits of professionals and defendants.

Of course, this was not the best environment to preserve the privacy of stories that affected a victim of crimes against sexual freedom and that were told by her own parents.

As usual, this lawyer was standing interrogating, while the witnesses and the official were seated.

Something that was not very inconvenient for me since I did not need a script to interrogate although I did remember other times with longer and more complex interrogations in which I would have appreciated having a table on which I would have supported my notebook or my computer to have a reference there, in addition to be able to make the corresponding notes on the answers given or write other possible questions.

With the copy of the minutes of the testimonial statements in which it was indicated “Before His Honor and with the presence of the Attorney General of the Administration of Justice …”, I left the judicial office thanking the friendly official and the other two servants who worked alongside him.

Upon leaving the judicial building, the scholarship holder who had accompanied me to the event told me that this was not what she had studied in the procedural law course or in the syllabus of the competitive examinations for judges and prosecutors that she had prepared for a few months; Also, that he had been very surprised by the attitude of the judge, questioning the practice of some procedures that he himself had agreed to, as well as his “flight” from the place without saying goodbye.

I could have put on record my protest against the related procedural irregularity, first indicating to the official and then to the judge that this judicial proceeding could not be carried out in that way, warning of its nullity.

But I did not.

If that veteran judge preferred to delegate his work in this way after so many years and that was known to the court clerk, the judges, lawyers, prosecutors, the senior judge, why should I correct him?

He had already done it once in other courthouses and it had only served to anger the judge.

It did not harm my clients at all, but certainly I was being a necessary cooperator in this corruption.

I continued walking along the pedestrian avenue on the way to the hotel where I was going to have breakfast and I remembered a friend of the lawyer whose office was almost opposite the hotel, I called him in case he could accompany me but he told me that his occupations did not allow him at that time.

Notwithstanding which, after recounting my recent experience, he, as a former justice officer and a good connoisseur of that court, told me that this magistrate has his court so well organized that long before the usual hours they close all the entrance doors tightly and tightly. , not receiving anyone else.

And who am I to alter the “normal” functioning of that judicial body?

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