Diplomatic immunity in Spain to be cut from 17,621 people to 22
Wednesday, September 3, 2014 @ 7:41 PM
DIPLOMATIC immunity for public figureheads in Spain is about to be heavily slashed, with the current 17,621 enjoying legal privileges falling to 22.
At present, politicians at State and regional level, judges and magistrates, prosecutors and other law-enforcers go straight to the Supreme Court when they are sued or accused of a crime, rather than having to go through the entire court hierarchy as ordinary citizens are obliged to do so.
The highest court in the land – except for the Constitutional Court, which only deals with interpretations of Spain's Magna Carta – requires far higher standards of evidence to convict a person appearing before it, meaning there is more chance that if a diplomatically-immune party is taken straight to the Supreme Court they will escape charges through lack of sufficient proof.
It also costs a vast amount of public funds to take a case to the Supreme Court, and cases are settled far more swiftly than when the local, provincial, regional and then national courts deal with them as the appeal process climbs the court ladder.
And the diplomatically-immune go straight to the Supreme Court for every charge against them, civil or criminal, right down to causing accidents through drunk driving.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com