The judge who was a PP councilor in Madrid and who was in favor of legalizing prostitution

MadridMaría Tardón (Zarzuela del Pinar, Segovia, 1957) has been a judge at the National Court since 2018, when she took over from Carmen Lamela, the magistrate who sent the 'Jordis' to prison in September 2017. Tardón, a single mother and a cinema enthusiast, has made cameos in five films and has completed many stages of the Camino de Santiago. She began working at sixteen in a chocolate factory while studying law by correspondence and has been practicing as a judge for 39 years. She had only a four-year hiatus to jump into politics as Deputy Mayor for Security with the PP in Madrid from 1999 to 2003. She is now at the forefront of current events because she will investigate the mass entry of immigrants into Ceuta and her past with the PP has led Minister Óscar Puente to “doubt her impartiality”.

At the Madrid City Council, she had jurisdiction over Traffic, the Municipal Police, and the Fire Department. In an interview at that time, she opened up to legalizing prostitution: “The solution must come from here. If you legalize an activity, you also establish the rules of execution. If it is not legalized, it is impossible to regulate it,” she told El País. Later, she worked at the Madrid Court with exclusive jurisdiction over Violence Against Women and was a member of the Advisory Council of the Regional Observatory against Gender-Based Violence of the Community of Madrid. Recently, at the National Court, she was in charge of investigating Gonzalo Boye and sending him to trial for alleged money laundering in a drug trafficking scheme.

What is she like as a judge?

A lawyer who has coincided with her at the National Court in other cases explains to ARA that she is “very approachable” and “very kind” in her dealings. She considers her a “very rigorous” judge with “very well-reasoned” resolutions that “go into detail,” but admits that she has a high workload that makes her “especially slow.” “She lacks hours in the day,” she concludes. Another lawyer agrees that her treatment of defendants and lawyers is “very pleasant”.

On the other hand, a solicitor who coincided with her at the Madrid courts thirty years ago has a very different opinion. He recalls that she investigated the falsification of the Laos papers, which led to the handover of Luis Roldán –former director of the Civil Guard– to Spain so that he could be investigated for corruption. He believes the investigation was “anomalous and reckless” and intended to “compromise” the Spanish government: “I have never thought of her as a sensible or reasonable woman and a good jurist,” he concludes.