Manos Limpias
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Manos Limpias (English: Clean Hands) is a trade union registered in Spain. The group was inspired and founded in Madrid in 1995 by the Spanish lawyer Miguel Bernad Remón, as an organization representing employees of the Spanish public services. The union has no institutional representation as of 2009. The group takes their name from the Mani Pulite judiciary movement in Italy instigated by Antonio Di Pietro. At present, the union has over 6,000 members, who financially contribute with an annual fee of 60 euros.
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[edit] Social and political objectives
Manos Limpias' stated goal is to defend the Constitutional Rule of law against corruption and separatist nationalism. Manos Limpias is independent from any party, and claims to have no ideological affiliation [1]; however most of the lawsuits brought by them to court were consistently against the socialist left or against the nationalist right in Catalonia and Basque Country, with some exceptions of cases against the centre-right Partido Popular. The group has often been described by the media as far-right [2] [3] [4] civil servants' organisation due to their choice of court actions and Mr. Bernad's past membership to the far right party Fuerza Nueva during the early eighties.
[edit] Legal actions
Manos Limpias has achieved some legal successes such as the conviction on contempt of court charges of the president of the Basque parliament, Juan Maria Atutxa, for disobeying the Supreme Court’s requirement to disband Sozialista Abertzaleak the political wing of ETA.
Manos Limpias has achieved some notoriety in the international press after filing a lawsuit against the controversial Spanish investigating judge Baltasar Garzón. After the judiciary stopped Garzón from investigating war crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War for contravening the 1977 amnesty law and breaking the principle of 'irretroactivity' of law (that is that an offender cannot be charged with a crime which was not proscribed or was permitted by law at the time it was committed) , as the crimes under investigation were previous to 1940, whereas the concept of crimes against humanity was not implemented in International Law until 1945.
Manos Limpias accused Garzón of breaking the 1977 Amnesty law, exceeding his competences as an investigating judge of the Audiencia Nacional and deliberately acting in an unjust and unfair manner (as in 1998 Garzón dismissed a similar indictment against communist politician Santiago Carrillo, accused of crimes against humanity during the Spanish Civil War, based on the principle of irretroactivity). In May 2009 the Supreme Court accepted Manos Limpias' lawsuit against Garzón for prevarication: his "blatant, deliberate, conscious and arrogant role" in "trespassing against the dead". On February 27th 2012 the Spanish Supreme Court found Garzón innocent on these charges. It is worth noting that the United Nations has requested that Spain repeal the 1977 law [5].
In February 2012, Garzón was convicted and disqualified for 11 years on a completely different charge to the above; this decision is under appeal.
[edit] Defence of conservative principles espoused by Manos Limpias
In an interview with the Spanish Catholic radio Station COPE at the time of the indictment, Miguel Bernad claimed that, by admitting the latest action against Garzón, the Supreme Court had given a boost to its mission of battling against the current "deterioration in the rule of law". There had been some twenty previous attempts from Manos Limpias to incriminate Garzón, for various alleged offences including negligence or delay in the seizure of taverns used by ETA militants, for contributing to the leading left-wing national newspaper El País, for contributing to a interview with former parliamentary president Felipe González, for participating in a rally against the war in Iraq and for leaking the medical report of Augusto Pinochet. Other Manos Limpias complaints include promotion of gay marriage in a popular children's TV puppet show.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ The far-right as an excuse .Article published by Manos Limpias retrieved 14 February de 2012.
- ^ Manos limpias, a politically far right trade union .Article published by the National Radio & TV of Spain RTVE on 27 May de 2009.
- ^ Manos limpias, a 'union' to settle the score .Article published by El Pais El_Pais on 31 May 2009.
- ^ 20 year disqualification sought over Garzon's Franco investigations .Article published by ABC ABC_(newspaper) on 13 February 2012.
- ^ 2008: UN Human Rights Committee calls on Spain to repeal the 1977 amnesty law and to ensure that domestic courts do not apply limitation periods to crimes against humanity: [1].
