The Juvenile Prosecutor's Office appeals the judge's decision not to detain the Bretón crime book.

BarcelonaThe Barcelona Juvenile Prosecutor's Office has appealed the decision of the court of first instance, which on Monday denied a precautionary halt to the distribution of the book. Hate, by Luisgé Martín, in which José Bretón confesses to the murder of his two children in 2011 and reveals intimate details about the children's mother, Ruth Ortiz. Following the murders, Ortiz led the judicial fight to classify vicarious violence (that which hits children for harming their mothers) as a type of gender-based violence.

In the appeal, the prosecutor reiterates that he is acting to avoid the "serious and imminent risk of unlawful interference with the right to honor" of Ruth and José, the two minors murdered and burned at the stake by their father. On Monday, Barcelona's 39th Court of First Instance denied the precautionary measure requested by the Prosecutor's Office, arguing that without the book's contents, it could not make a provisional decision before a trial that, ultimately, must weigh the right to freedom of expression and the children's right to honor.

However, the public prosecutor now tells the judge that it did have sufficient material at its disposal to halt publication and that, in any case, Anagrama should have provided the judge with a copy or a draft of the book. Furthermore, it criticizes the judge for rejecting the precautionary suspension of publication when the aim is "precisely to prevent" the book from being put on sale, stating that this is the only way to prevent the violation of children's rights.

"A conflict of rights"

This Tuesday, the Spanish Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, also spoke out on the case. He did so to request that the children's mother be taken into account when deciding whether or not to publish the book. During a speech in the Congress of Deputies, where he delivered his institution's report on vicarious violence, Gabilondo acknowledged that in this case there is "a conflict of rights," but asserted that "conflicts of rights are not resolved in a kind of competitive dilemma where one must choose" one or the other. The Ombudsman also delved into the impact of vicarious violence on women, "a violence that does not end, not even with the death of their children," and called for "the best interests of the woman in relation to her children when those children are murdered" to be taken into account.

Freedom of Expression and Children's Rights

The request filed by the Prosecutor's Office was accompanied by various news stories that have echoed the book and the press release with which Anagrama announced it, which includes six lines of the text. The judge believes these excerpts are "insufficient" to assess the case. Therefore, he responded to the Prosecutor's Office that "it is absolutely impossible to make a provisional and circumstantial judgment" on the book's content to decide whether the courts should intervene to protect the rights of minors without first holding a trial.

The lack of details about the book's content, the judge said, reaches such a point that it is impossible to clarify its genre, making it impossible to assess the limits of freedom of expression and information. In this case, in addition to the children's right to honor and privacy, the right to freedom of expression of the author and publisher is also involved, and the judge considers that at the moment he does not have sufficient information to be able to weigh these two rights.

Ortiz had requested legal protection to halt the book's distribution, and the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office, where the publisher's headquarters are located, requested precautionary measures to suspend its publication. The Andalusian Victim Assistance Service (SAVA) previously submitted a letter to the Prosecutor's Office requesting "help, assistance, and protection," signed by Ruth Ortiz, in which she considers the publication illegal.

The children's mother points out that learning about the book's details through the media is causing her "great pain and further psychological damage." In the letter, she considers the book's publication illegal under the law protecting the right to honor, personal and family privacy, and one's own image, as well as contrary to the law protecting children and adolescents.