The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Dimas Martín, who claimed to collect compensation alleging that there was a "judicial error" in one of the final convictions of the Unión case that weigh on him, for the Los Rostros case. In its order, dated November 7, the Chamber concludes that what Dimas intended "in the background" was "a new judicial review of facts and legal considerations that have already been resolved" in the ruling, in which he was sentenced to two years in prison for carrying out illegal works in a house of his family located in the municipality of Yaiza, in the area of Los Rostros.
"It seems that the claim of judicial error has been improperly used as a resource aimed at opening a new pronouncement," argues the Supreme Court, which imposes on the historical leader of the PIL the payment of the costs generated with this new attempt to annul that conviction, which was added to those that he had already undertaken until now without success.
As the order recalls, the judgment of first instance was issued in February 2017 by the Criminal Court and was later ratified by the Provincial Court, which in November of that year rejected the appeal filed by Dimas Martín against the first ruling. Dimas' defense then opened a new extraordinary route, presenting an incident of nullity of the judgment, which was also dismissed last April. Afterwards, he undertook a final step that has now been rejected, presenting himself as a victim of a "judicial error" and claiming compensation.
"He has been subjected to the rigor of the criminal procedure"
"My client has been subjected to the rigor of the criminal procedure since he was charged, then accused with assistance to the months of trial, hiring defense, travel, finally convicted, filed an appeal and, subsequently after its rejection, incident of nullity, also rejected," the lawsuit argued, in which the defense itself recalled all the failed attempts to prove the innocence of its client.
"As a consequence of the sentence imposed on the basis of the judicial error that is denounced, my client, who is serving this sentence in the Tahíche prison, is attending to the part that is possible of civil liability and has made available to the execution chamber all his assets that, if not remedied by the estimation of this lawsuit, will be auctioned and awarded, with the pernicious consequences that will derive from it," he added, despite the fact that Dimas Martín has not even paid the civil liability of other previous convictions, such as that of the Agroindustrial Complex, which forced him to return 2.4 million embezzled and to pay the same amount as a fine.
In the case of the Los Rostros sentence, the fine was 12,000 euros, but he has not paid it either, and he also intended to claim compensation, stating that the amount should be "determined once the error reason or reason for this lawsuit is recognized." To sustain it, as he already did in the trial, Dimas' lawyer again alleged that "fundamental rights and constitutional principles" had been violated and that there had been a "manifest and proscribed defenselessness." However, the Supreme Court strongly rejects his claims, concluding that there is no reason to conclude that there was a judicial error, as the Prosecutor's Office had also warned in its response to this lawsuit.
The Prosecutor's Office does not even see "the need for greater argumentative efforts"
"In no way can we speak of judicial error," the Prosecutor's Office had pointed out, which stressed that both the judgment of first instance and the one issued by the Court resolving Dimas' appeal "have sufficient grounds to prove the participation of the appellant in the crime in which he was convicted." Thus, he concluded that "without the need for greater argumentative efforts, it cannot be argued that a gross or blatant error was incurred, the only assumption that allows proclaiming judicial error."
For its part, the Supreme Court agrees that none of the requirements to support a lawsuit of this type are met and refuses to even admit it for processing. "Nothing else emerges than the intention of a review, impossible procedurally, of the assessment of evidence made by the Criminal Court and ratified by the Provincial Court when dismissing the appeal," the order insists.
