The story of exile Luis Acairo Sánchez (Tenerife, 1976) is anything but ordinary. Courts do not decide to remove judges from their careers, but they are even less likely to do so if a decision is handed down by a completely divided Supreme Court. With three votes in favor and two against, the man who owned a plaza in Santander (Cantabria) and has since spent years fighting corruption in the city was disqualified from holding judicial office for 10 years. Akairo, who was found guilty of fraud, plans to prevail in the Constitutional Court.
Last July, the Supreme Criminal Court assessed the penalties imposed by the Cantabrian High Court of Justice (TSJC) and increased the penalties. This meant that he would definitively lose the position he held and would be unable to hold any judicial or public office for 10 years. The underlying issue is a strictly legal one: did I make a “mistake” in making the decision, or did I do it in a way that was unfair “to those who knew it”?
The facts date back to 2018, when Acairo, then President of Santander’s Litigation and Administrative Court 2, wrote a letter to Ayuntamiento de Castañeda (1,600 inhabitants) requesting documents justifying a series of contracts supporting the city’s performance, including the Consistorio’s contract with external lawyer José María Real. This issue, like many others, ended in the archives in 2019, giving reasons to the Ayuntamiento. But two years later, in 2021, Academic Real, along with the Monastery of Cantabria, revived the issue and accused the judge of misconduct.
The nuclear issue is based on knowing whether the judge exceeded his or her capacity when requesting information from the ayuntamiento and whether the judge was intentionally dishonest. Some legal voices have explained that cheating requires cheating and it is hard to believe that it separates someone from their race. First, because there is a system of internal resources in place to correct mistakes that could lead to fraud, and second, because it is not easy to prove that a decision – including the decision to put someone in prison – was not just a mistake.
Legal sources connected to the case also explain that there were several individuals against Acairo in Cantabria following this dispute, which was filed several years later. Upon this closure, the judge attempted to move to another location within the High Court of Cantabria (TSJC) where the judicial power had appointed another judge. Akairou unsuccessfully challenged the ascension of this other judge. However, Togado participated in the court that allowed the charges against him to be disposed of and the court that tried and convicted him.
The decision in the Supreme Court’s criminal court was judged in some parts of the judicial community not by the punishment itself, but by the harshest personal votes of Justices Antonio del Moral and Leopoldo Puente. Andres Martínez Arrieta, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry; And Judge Anna Ferrer (in the High Court of Cantabria) “manipulated or counterattacked” those sentenced to probation in the first sentence so that they could eliminate any trace of “ambiguity” and link criminal activity.
The closed-door vote set the limits of Mr. Akiro’s Amparo appeal to the Constitutional Court. “The evidence[of the first judgment]somehow hints at a recognition of injustice that requires a deliberate preemption of justice under Article 466 of the Penal Code, which in itself should lead to a pardon.” This reflects the document’s access to this country. In its decision, the Supreme Court violated the prohibition against “reexamination or reassessment” of probate facts and introduced the following sentence into the original decision in the case:
The National Court found in writing that Mr. Akiro “wrongly believed that he was acting in accordance with his professional obligations,” and argued in the appeal, filed on November 3 last year, that “it is impossible for an individual to believe that he is acting in accordance with his obligations – which, according to the derecho, the individual determines – and at the same time recognize that he is prescribing an unreasonable settlement.”
Furthermore, please introduce the thesis that you have no right to an impartial judge to participate in this court proceeding against a magistrate who has carried out administrative proceedings within his jurisdiction so that the case can proceed to the High Court of Cantabria. Akairo tried to refuse, but he could not understand. If the Constitutional Court were allowed to go into the background of this issue, it would be possible to draw a clearer line on the limits of juicy bias.
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