Equality Minister Irene Montero has been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay €18,000 in civil proceedings to a man she accused of being an abuser. The judges believe that the minister violated the right to respect for the man, Maria Sevilla’s former partner, the former president of Infancia Libre, who was convicted and later pardoned, saying that he was an abuser when he was not convicted.
“It is clear that the words spoken and the charges presented objectively imply non-pecuniary damage, as synonymous with discomfort, restlessness and even anger, as well as experienced by the plaintiff within the framework of the long trial,” the civil court said. supreme. In addition to paying compensation, he will have to delete the tweet in which he made these statements and publish the guilty verdict on his Twitter account.
Maria Sevilla was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for harboring and hiding her child with her ex-partner and the child’s father. The reason that initially the police formed in the joint and criminal strategy of the Infancia Libre association, but later studied specific cases without the intervention of the criminal organization. Sevilla finally received a partial pardon from the government a year ago, reducing his prison sentence and banning him from exercising parental authority over the child, replacing the sentences with community service in exchange for years to come. four years.
On the same day that the partial pardon was published in the official state gazette, Minister Montero spoke at the inauguration of the Women’s Institute, where he highlighted the grace granted by the executive branch. An intervention in which he claimed that María Sevilla was protected from mistreatment and sexist violence. “Guardian mothers suffer unfairly and, in many cases, are expected to have many of their rights violated, criminalized and suspected by society when they are doing nothing more than protecting themselves and their loved ones. Sons and daughters from sexist violence. Bullies,” he said throughout the intervention.
Maria Sevilla’s ex-partner decided to take Montero to court because she understood that he had been described as a violent person when he was convicted several times of sexual assault and all the cases were filed in Sevilla except for the conviction for theft. Minors were being investigated for false accusations. The man took the case to the Supreme Court with the prosecutor’s office, asking not to be prosecuted, accusing him of an “excessive and disproportionate” compensation claim of €85,000.
The Supreme Court decided to partially agree with him, finding that Montero had violated his honor and accused him of ill-treatment, although he did not clearly mention him by name, and ordered the Minister of Equality to compensate him with 18,000 euros, to delete the tweet in which he had published his intervention, and to publish the verdict on the official Twitter- on
“Various criminal complaints have been filed”
The Supreme Court understands that Montero’s words “do not have any factual basis” because Maria Sevilla’s complaints against her then-partner are “archived” and “there is no judicial decision that allows us to conclude that the plaintiff is the author of the episodes of gender violence. or in the face of a child who has committed a crime of domestic or sexual violence. For this reason, the justices argue that Montero’s words “contrary to the plaintiff’s right to be treated with the view that those found not responsible for any act of gender-based or domestic violence deserve it.”
All court decisions in his case, the Supreme Court adds, deny that he is a perpetrator and Montero, they rebuke, attribute it to “sexist violence.” “The defendant’s rationale for thereby attributing acts of sexist violence to the actor cannot be protected by freedom of expression,” the motion said. And they explain: “It is not the policy of the Ministry that is in any way called into question, but the derogatory nature which the words which form the object of these proceedings imply to the honor of the plaintiff, without any factual basis for imputing them to the plaintiff. , which is a gratuitous grant in the patent discredit of his dignity as a person.”
The Supreme Court found that although she did not mention the man by name, it “cannot be denied” that he was perfectly identified in her words. “Therefore, it is not true that it was the claimant who voluntarily gave up anonymity when she was perfectly identifiable as the person who was alleged to have been mistreated,” the chamber admonished. The judges also stated that the minister’s words were not protected by parliamentary immunity, since “they were not uttered in the performance of his duties as a member of Congress.”
Source: El Diario
