Vergés and Argimon, acquitted of the case for the covid-19 vaccination of police officers and civil guards

BarcelonaThe Barcelona Provincial Court has acquitted former Health Ministers Alba Vergés and Josep Maria Argimon following the trial in which they were accused of "discriminating" against police officers and civil guards in the vaccination campaign against covid. The ruling, to which ARA has had access, also acquits the rest of the former department officials who sat in the dock: Marc Ramentol, Adrià Comella, and Xavier Rodríguez.

Furthermore, the court has ordered the police associations Jupol and Jucil to pay the costs of the proceedings. These associations acted as the prosecution in the case and maintained their request for sentences of up to 15 years of disqualification until the end of the trial, when the Public Prosecutor's Office withdrew them. These two entities will have to cover the trial expenses, except for the defense of Xavier Rodríguez, the only one against whom they withdrew the accusation.

The three judges signing the ruling base their argument on the fact that it has not been proven that the accused acted with the intention to discriminate, as would be necessary for the crime of prevarication of which they were accused. In fact, the judges explain that this lack of intent is compatible with the 2021 ruling in which the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) convicted the Generalitat, in civil court, for discriminating against the agents with the vaccination calendar and forced them to be vaccinated within a period of 10 days. The ruling published this Monday, from the criminal jurisdiction, clarifies that a situation can be discriminatory without there being intent, an element that would be necessary for a criminal conviction.

"Everything was prepared"

The judges insist that "it is unquestionable that everything was ready" to vaccinate the officers as soon as the vaccination centers and censuses were chosen. In fact, they recall that it was the affected police forces themselves who requested to be vaccinated outside the general vaccination system, because they preferred to receive the doses in their own facilities instead of public health centers. The judges also make it clear that vaccination with AstraZeneca, which is what the police were receiving, was suspended when it was decided to prioritize the population over 60 years of age and following cases of thrombosis as side effects.

Beyond the specific circumstances that interfered with the pace of vaccination, the judges highlight that analyzing this case has been especially complicated considering that the vaccination process itself already entailed "evident difficulties," not only in the case of the police. "As anyone who lived through such a turbulent time knows, situations of paralysis occurred in the implementation of the vaccines. The fear of side effects caused the vaccination with certain vaccines to be suspended, and this necessarily implied delays," the judges explain.