The Stratvs case trial, which began last January and had to be suspended due to the Covid-19 crisis, was finally due to be ready for sentencing on July 28, but the Las Palmas Provincial Court has just suspended the last five sessions that were scheduled. The decision, adopted due to a medical problem of one of the three magistrates that make up the Chamber, endangers the entire trial, which may have to be repeated from the beginning.
In total, about twenty sessions have already been held and only the statements of the last experts and the presentation of the conclusions by the accusations and the defenses were missing, which were set for the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 28th of July. However, a surgery to one of the judges of the Sixth Section has led to the suspension of those dates, without being able to establish a new calendar so far.
For the moment, in a resolution issued this Tuesday, Magistrate Carlos Vielba gives three days to the Prosecutor's Office and the rest of the parties involved in the procedure to rule on this new situation, expressly citing the consequences it may have under article 788.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law. This article establishes that the practice of the test during the trial must be carried out "in the consecutive sessions that are necessary", and also that between these sessions a "maximum limit of thirty days" may elapse.
In the case of the Stratvs trial, the last session was held on June 23 in Lanzarote and the next was scheduled for July 21 in Gran Canaria, but that one will no longer be held and it is also not clear when it can be resumed, since it will depend on the health evolution of the magistrate. In addition, even if it was possible to replace that judge - which is complicated because the other magistrate of the Sixth Section, Salvador Alba, is suspended after being convicted - this would also affect the validation of everything done so far, because a magistrate cannot join a trial in the final stretch of the oral hearing.
In this way, the trial could have to be repeated from the beginning, in case it is not possible to resume it within that legal term of 30 days between session and session and with the magistrates who started it.
It should be remembered that the hearing has already been paralyzed for months (in fact it had to end on April 3), but in this case it was due to the state of alarm, which implied the suspension of all procedural deadlines. Therefore, while the state of alarm was in force, that article of the Criminal Procedure Law did not apply.
However, these circumstances no longer exist and if the trial continues now, the accused could ask in the future for the annulment of the proceedings, alleging that the principle of "immediacy" in the oral hearing has not been respected. However, so far no decision has been made and the Court has urged the parties to "express what suits their right", before deciding what to do with the procedure. In the event that it had to be repeated, considering the number of sessions that are necessary and the bottleneck that the Covid crisis has caused in the Courts, the new hearing could be resumed in 2021.
