European Court of Human Rights
rules Spain must free Eta prisoner
By The Financial Times
Spain could be forced to release dozens of
prisoners belonging to the Basque separatist organisation Eta
after the European Court of Human Rights overturned a controversial Spanish
sentencing practice that was strongly backed by the government in Madrid.
The Strasbourg court on Monday struck down the
so-called Parot doctrine, which has been used by Spanish courts since 2006 to
prevent the early release of prisoners convicted of grave crimes, typically
linked to terrorism and involving multiple murders. The ruling is binding on Spain and is likely to pave the way for a
speedy – and fiercely unpopular – release of at least 61 Eta prisoners and 14
other convicts.
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Spain’s justice minister,
criticised the ruling, saying: “It cannot be that someone who has killed 20
people is treated in the same way as someone who committed a single murder.”
Eta declared an “indefinite”
ceasefire in 2011, after a decades-long campaign that claimed the
lives of more than 800 people. However, it has so far refused to give up its arms
and formally disband itself. Many see the Basque group’s stance as an attempt
to keep a bargaining chip to secure better conditions for hundreds of Eta
members who remain in jail, and possibly even their release.
But the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
is under intense pressure from Eta victims and their families, who argue that
the state should ensure tougher sentences for the militants. The Strasbourg
ruling provoked a fresh outcry from groups such as Spain’s Foundation for the
Victims of Terrorism, which said the court had “valued the impunity of
terrorists higher than doing justice to the victims”.
The judges in Strasbourg ruled that the Spanish
sentencing practice broke several rights enshrined in the European Convention
on Human Rights. They argued that the doctrine amounted to a retroactive change
in the sentence that the convict could not have foreseen at the time of the
verdict.
The ruling applies directly only to the Eta
prisoner who brought the case, but it will, at the very least, act as a strong
precedent for the other convicts. Mr Ruiz-Gallardón said it was now up to
Spanish judges to decide how the Strasbourg ruling affected other cases in
which the Parot doctrine was applied.
Under Spanish law, courts can hand down extremely
long sentences, even running to thousands of years, but the maximum time that
can be served is fixed at 30 years. The Parot doctrine was developed by Spain’s
constitutional court to ensure that prisoners serving very long prison terms
are not freed significantly before the 30-year maximum. It means that benefits
accrued during time spent in jail are not deducted from the 30-year maximum but
from the actual sentence handed down by the court.
The sentencing practice is named after Henri Parot, an Eta member who was
condemned to 4,700 years in prison after being found guilty of 33 murders in
the years between 1978 and 1990. Despite his extremely long sentence, he became
eligible for release after spending just 20 years in prison, 10 fewer than the
maximum allowed under Spain’s criminal code.
The case before the judges in Strasbourg was that of Inés del Río Prada, a
member of Eta who received prison sentences totalling 3,000 years for her role
in a series of terrorist attacks between 1982 and 1987. In her case, the use of
the Parot doctrine extended her jail term by almost nine years – from July 2008
to June 2017. “The applicant . . . served a longer term of imprisonment than she
should have served under the Spanish legal system in operation at the time of
her conviction,” the court said in a statement.
Strasbourg told Madrid to release Ms del Río Prada “at the earliest
possible date”. The government will also have to pay her €30,000 for
non-pecuniary damages.