The audio of the trial of journalist Juan Santana confirms that the magistrate decided that it was not necessary for him to have a defense lawyer

Carlos Berbell | 01/07/2021 1:00 | Updated: 07/01/2021 1:50 AM

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The audio of the trial against the journalist Juan Santana, director and presenter of the Radio Las Palmas program “El Pulso”, confirms that the magistrate Juan Avelló Formoso he considered that it was not necessary for him to have a defense lawyer, as stated by the prosecutor.

The magistrate acknowledges that the attorney for Santana had informed him before the trial of the absence of the defense attorney. And he blames the lawyer without making any gesture of suspending the oral hearing for it, as would have been the logical thing to do. On the contrary, despite this, his willingness to continue the trial is clear. And so he reflected it later in the sentence.

Santana was later sentenced in a sentence to compensate with 50,000 euros, in solidarity, together with Radio Las Palmas, where he presented and directed the program «El Pulso» and with Paula Mariana Cabrera Meza, to the also magistrate Rafael Passaro Cabrera, the plaintiff.

For an illegitimate interference in his honor.

During the interview, Paula Mariana Cabrera Meza, protagonist of the statements that was the subject of the trial, Passaro’s ex-wife, declared that she had not denounced him for mistreatment because she was financially dependent on him to feed her daughters.

As for Santana, when he was being questioned at trial by the plaintiff’s attorney, he made it clear that he was defenseless. Because your defense attorney, Francisco Javier Martínez Charro, assigned by the duty shift of the College of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, had not appeared.

Despite this, and an exemplary intervention by the prosecutor, who believed that the oral hearing should be suspended due to Santana’s defenselessness, Avelló Formoso, head of the Court of First Instance 2 of that city, decided that it was not necessary and continued with the trial until its end.

INFORMATIONAL DILIGENCES OF THE CGPJ ON JUDGE AVELLÓ FORMOSO

The promoter of the Disciplinary Action of the General Council of the Judicial Power, Ricardo CondeAfter receiving Santana’s complaint, he opened some information proceedings to the magistrate of the case in the face of what could mean a very serious lack of inattention or inexcusable ignorance of articles 417.9 and 17 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Power.

A complaint that he also filed before the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands when he considered that there had been a violation of article 24 of the Constitution, which establishes the right of all Spaniards to obtain effective judicial protection from judges and courts in the exercise of their rights and legitimate interests, “without under any circumstances being defenseless.”

In the same way, Santana denounced the lawyer on duty, Martínez Charro, before the Bar Association, who opened information procedures for him.

THE AUDIO

In the audio of the trial, to which Confilegal has had access, Santana answers the plaintiff’s lawyer that he does not have a lawyer.

SANTANA: Well, because I don’t have a lawyer. My lawyer has dumped me.

LAWYER FOR THE PLAINTIFF: Did you ever address the plaintiff …

SANTANA: I am here now helpless. I have no defense. I don’t know if you know … The magistrate, I imagine …

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Yes, the prosecutor said it before.

SANTANA: I declare myself defenseless.

LAWYER FOR THE PLAINTIFF: Mr. Magistrate …

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Yes.

SANTANA: In case there is a problem with something, I say. Should I have a lawyer? I say.

JUDGE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Yes, it should have it, but it isn’t there.

SANTANA: Forgiveness?

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: That is not, no.

SANTANA: But, I don’t know if I can be here without a lawyer.

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Is here. Here is just the interrogation. If you want….

SANTANA: I say, the circumstances that may happen after this trial … If I have to make a statement. If I have to do, what to put, I don’t know. I normally have not seen anyone in court without a lawyer. Its the first time. There is always a first time.

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: But let’s see…

SANTANA: I am not discussing anything.

At this point, the magistrate, instead of suspending the oral hearing, which would have been the logical thing to do, so that Santana could have a defense lawyer, decides to blame the defense lawyer who did not fulfill his obligation to defend his client.

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: That will be your lawyer’s fault.

SANTANA: Forgiveness?

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: That it will be the fault of his lawyer who left him here, but the trial can still be held.

FISCAL: May I, Your Honor?

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Yes.

FISCAL: Look, let’s see, the situation in which you find yourself is not procedurally correct. If you understand that you cannot undergo this interrogation without being a lawyer, either you trust, or if you have the right to free justice, appointed by free justice, I would have to be interested, Your Honor, that the act be suspended. Are you in a position to submit to this questioning and carry out this trial without the presence of your lawyer? Because we do not know the reasons why the lawyer has not appeared.

SANTANA: Me neither.

FISCAL: The fact is that it is not. But it is true that you are risking an important civil sentence, requested by the plaintiff, and you have the right to attend this act, with your lawyer. Do you have a lawyer appointed by you?

SANTANA: I have a lawyer appointed for free justice.

FISCAL: For gratuitous justice.

SANTANA: That I have not seen in my life. A colleague has attended to me.

FISCAL: Has the Bar Association appointed you? The Bar Association here has appointed him …

SANTANA: Yes Yes.

FISCAL: A lawyer.

SANTANA: Yes.

FISCAL: Me, Your Honor, if he is not fit and is not represented …

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: But he still didn’t say. Do you want to stop or do we continue?

Santana, confused, unaware of the procedure, does not know what to answer, but is aware of what is at stake, and leaves the magistrate to make the decision, which should have been to suspend the trial.

But Avelló Formoso, from his words, intended to continue. And followed.

SANTANA: It is that to me, what I would like…. Is that if I … I’m playing here … I do not know … I am the same … I do not understand, I have no idea about the subject of …

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Inaudible.

PLANTING ATTORNEY: If you allow me. Without prejudice to what the Public Prosecutor’s Office has just listened carefully to what they say, it is true that the claim is answered, the prior hearing is held, the failure to appear in that prior hearing, which entails the lack of ratification of that answer to the claim. , and clear legal consequences. Procedural rebellion. The gentleman has seen fit to appear to carry out the interrogation of part. But if I hadn’t come, nothing would happen either, what I’m trying to say. We understand that there is not enough vice to decree a suspension, a nullity. It can be continued perfectly. A different question would have been if the claim had been answered, if the reply to the claim had been ratified, the absence of the lawyer would have generated defenselessness.

MAGISTRATE AVELLÓ FORMOSO: Thank you. It proceeds to resolve at this time by agreeing to continue the procedure, considering the arguments of the plaintiff as reproduced. Therefore, it continues. However, the protest is recorded for the purposes of second instance.

Interestingly, no one protested.

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