Mallorca: Top judge says independent courts protect democracy

In Palma, Mallorca, Spain, María Isabel Perelló warns that democracy loses a vital pillar without independent courts. Spain’s most senior judge makes the warning on Friday, 13 November, as she receives the Degà Miquel Frontera award for legal ethics from the Balearic Islands Bar Association. Perelló heads Spain’s Supreme Court and General Council of the Judiciary.

Judges must be able to protect people’s rights from possible abuses by both private individuals and public authorities, she says. That takes independence: the courts must be able to act as a check on the government and parliament.

Perelló also recalls one of her first judicial posts. In the summer of 1985, she took charge of the only court of first instance in Maó, Menorca, Spain.

The ceremony had been set for 29 October, but the bar association postponed it after a train crash in Urda, Toledo, Spain, killed 69 people. Perelló offers her condolences to the victims’ families and expresses solidarity with those injured.

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com