Madrid justice endorses Vox's xenophobic poster against migrant minors

MadridThe Spanish extreme right has found in the Madrid courts a power in which for the moment it gets away with the controversies it accumulates, as well as the alleged irregularities that corner the leaders of Vox. On the other hand, Podemos considers that it has not found more response than decisions that the party considers a clear "political persecution" for its ideas. This Monday, three decisions that affect the two parties involved and that focus on the role of the judiciary have coincided. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has ratified the sentence of 19 months in prison for the spokeswoman of the purple party and former leader of the formation in the Assembly of Madrid, Isa Serra, for opposing an eviction in the neighborhood of Lavapiés in 2014; on the other hand, the Provincial Court of Madrid has endorsed the xenophobic poster of Vox against migrant minors that appeared at the Sol metro stop in the Spanish capital during the May 4th campaign. And, thirdly, the Public Prosecutor's Office has confirmed that it will not appeal the decision of the High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) not to accept a complaint against the leader of the ultra party in Madrid, Rocío Monasterio, for allegedly falsifying a building permit from the Association of Quantity Surveyors of Madrid.

In the case of the xenophobic poster the Provincial Court argues that unaccompanied foreign minors (known as "menas") are not allowed to enter the country and "represent an obvious social and political problem", "regardless of whether the figures they offer are true or not", as advanced by El País and confirmed by ARA, which has had access to the court order. It should be noted that the poster compared what Vox claimed was allocated to an ore each month with what was allocated to a low pension. A figure, in the case of minors, that ARA pointed out, in no case was true. But justice has already rejected the precautionary withdrawal of the cartel at the time and now responds to the appeals raised by both the Prosecutor's Office and the PSOE. The argument is that freedom of expression goes ahead: the judges consider that the party's publicity is an "electoral slogan" and cannot be considered to represent some "ideas to be prohibited" while other ideas "as criticizable or more than these".

In fact, the decision of the Provincial Court of Madrid is surprising that it just mentions the case of a former councilor of Ahora Madrid - the coalition that presented itself with Podemos in 2015 to the Madrid City Council, when Manuela Carmena was chosen - to argue that it was not considering the xenophobic Vox cartel a hate crime. It points out that in the case of Guillermo Zapata - who was acquitted of a case of alleged glorification of terrorism and humiliation of victims for a series of tweets - the facts were considered simple "macabre humor" and not a hate crime, as for example defended the Prosecutor's Office and the PSOE.

In the case of Isa Serra, however, the ratification of the conviction in the Supreme Court is for a crime of assault on authority following the attempt to stop an eviction seven and a half years ago. The co-spokesperson for Podemos has announced that she will appeal to Strasbourg a decision that she considers "unfair" and has warned that despite the "media" and "judicial" campaign that she has suffered, she will continue doing politics because in her opinion the sentence is an "attack on the right to demonstrate" and a "message" against those who, from the institutions, defend human rights. In fact, she has also anticipated at a press conference from the headquarters of Podemos that she will consider filing a complaint with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) concerning the leak of the sentence to OK Diario this weekend, because the official decision has just been notified this noon, ten minutes before the appearance before the media.

In the case of Serra, who already resigned from her seat in the Assembly of Madrid on June 7th taking for granted that she would soon be disqualified, the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court follows the criterion of the Prosecutor's Office and rejects the appeal. In addition to the 19-month prison sentence - which she will not have to serve for lack of a criminal record and for not serving two years - she will also have to pay a fine of 2,400 euros and 5,200 euros in compensation to the two officers who say they were injured. But for Serra, her case is nothing more than a series of "false accusations" and "without evidence", in which the officer's word comes first.

The case of Monasterio

The co-spokesman for Podemos, Pablo Fernández, has contrasted the resolutions on the former President of Madrid Cristina Cifuentes - last week her acquittal in the Master's case was ratified -and the Vox spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly, Rocío Monasterio, also acquitted with "proven facts", in the case of Serra, convicted "without proven facts." That is why she has pointed out that it is "very worrying" that, despite the fact that the majority of judges impart justice, there is a "minority" of the judiciary that "instead of a toga puts on the shirt of certain political parties". In this sense, she has criticized the attitude of PP to block the renewal of the CPGJ and believes that there are magistrates with a "clear ideology" to pursue "political opponents".

In the case of Monasterio, the Prosecutor's Office has directly desisted from appealing the decision of the TSJM not to admit the complaint for forgery. It should be noted that the Madrid justice system did recognize that the leader of Vox in the Community had forged a document, but considered that the forgery was so "crude" that no one could have believed it because it was easily detectable. Now the public ministry says it "shares the criterion of the judges that all this does not fit into the criminal type of documentary falsehood".