Arnaldo Otegui, acquitted.
According Humnanos Rights Court, Otegui had the right to accuse the king.
The incident occurred eight years ago, on February 26, 2003, when Arnaldo Otegui, Member of the Basque Parliament and spokesman for Sozialista Abertzaleak, training to be illegal end up propping up the Strasbourg court itself, criticized the visit of Juan Calos I to the Basque Country, where he opened a power plant. He said that the king visited Euskadi was the "chief torturer" who protected them. And it went on to say that "to impose his monarchic regime on our people by breaking and violence." Otegui reacted so much for the controversial visit of the king and the arrest of those responsible for Egunkaria, closed that month by the Audiencia Nacional. The Basque Country's highest court acquitted Otegui, but the Supreme Court sentenced him to one year in jail and deprived of her right to be elected. The Constitutional Court upheld the decision, so that the nationalist leader resorted to the European court.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Arnaldo Otegui compensated with 20,000 euros and acquitted for the crime of insulting the king who was wrongly convicted. The sentence, very critical of the judicial overprotection of the Crown, is a blow to the Supreme Court, which handed down the sentence and prevent pro-independence leader to be elected to any public office for the same period. The ECHR ruled that the two major English court violated his right to freedom of expression Otegi, who made a trial of courage and an assertion with no evidence as member of parliament and, therefore, on behalf of their constituents. The European Court accepted that Otegui expressions in themselves can be considered peculiar to a language "provocative" and "hostile" to the institution of the monarchy, but states that encourage the use of violence or is a "hate speech." The European Court considered that no Otegui free personal attack directed against the person of King, or questioned his private life or personal honor. Their expressions point only to the King's personal responsibility as a leader and symbol of the forces that he said had tortured the responsibility of the newspaper Egunkaria.
addition, the court recognized that the allegations of torture from the director of Egunkaria "gave rise to a" great debate "on the responsibilities of the State; complaint that is part of the fierce criticism of the Crown. On it rests the head of a State is entitled to criticize Otegui, as well as his role as chief of the armed forces, affects the court. The seven judges, among whom is the English Luis Lopez Guerra, unanimously ruled that Spain had violated Article 10 of the Convention, which recognizes the right of expression, through a conviction that "an attack on freedom of opinion itself. " Otegui must be compensated by the State with 20,000 euros for moral damages and 3,000 for the costs.
"The fact that the king holds a position of neutrality in the political debate does the Court of Strasbourg, a position of referee and a symbol of unity of the state, not what protects it from criticism in the exercise of official duties or, as in this case, as a representative of the State. Especially by those who legitimately answer the constitutional structures of government, including the monarchy. " In this case, the ruling makes clear that Otegui statements did not constitute a "free personal attack against the person "of the king, an offense under the Penal Code and punishable by between six months and two years in prison. If freedom of expression is a "precious" for everyone, "particularly for a popularly elected, representing their constituents, said their preoccupations and defends their interests," the European court. They also, implicitly concludes, are entitled to think that the king is the most visible legal head of armed forces that sometimes practice torture.
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