 |
 How can an
obscure commercial lawyer rise to the highest ranks of the Spanish judiciary? By political
influences combined with commercial power that can foresee the advantages of an ally at
the judicial benches, will we ever know? How the Spanish top judiciary accepted him as a
peer and reluctantly carried out an investigation of his evil deeds, only when presented
with incontrovertible evidence of his doings. It was only a few years ago that the major
of Jeréz de la Frontera, Pedro Pacheco, shocked Spain by openly declaring that
"justice in Spain is a laughing matter". Little did he know that judge Luis
Pascual Estevill was at the time qualifying anonymously to join Spain’s "premier
league" of fraudsters, joining the likes of Luis Roldán, Urralburu, Mariano Rubio
and Cañellas among others. But judge Estevill was different from the other corrupt white
collared fraudsters. He was in fact sheltered and nurtured by the prerogatives and
advantages of the Spanish legal system, which grants immunity to those who dispense
justice with impartiality. Wearing his robe, and hand on the gavel, his back covered by
the Spanish flag, and without compunction, offered preferential treatment and demanded
substantial amounts in turn from his hapless victims, playing God with the liberty and
imprisonment of many innocent victims. He was indeed a puppet; you either played or paid
the price for he held the strings. It was only due to the fortitude and sense of civil
duty that some of his victims decided to brave the impenetrable defences of the Spanish
legal system and try to prove to Estevill’s peers that all was not correct in the
dispensation of justice in the fiefdom of judge Luis Pascual Estevill. Fortunately there
was a certain awakening in the realms of the judiciary and much to their dislike found
that there was incontrovertible evidence that there is no smoke without fire and
reluctantly and belatedly took appropriate action. |
|
