The Supreme Court has annulled the sanction that the Disciplinary Commission of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) imposed a magistrate for having prevented one of the parties during the development of a trial from questioning their witnesses and formulating conclusions, for acting without a lawyer.
The Disciplinary Commission imposed on the magistrate, for her actions as holder of the Court of First Instance and Instruction Number 4 of Majadahonda in January 2020, a sanction of one day of suspension for the commission of a very serious infraction of neglect in the exercise of their judicial duties, provided for in article 417.9 of the Organic law of judicial power.
On January 20 of that year, an oral hearing was held where the sanctioned judge, once the first witness had appeared, after taking an oath, granted the floor to the lawyer of the party who had been sued. The lawyer warned the magistrate that this witness had been proposed by the other party, so it was up to the plaintiff to start questioning him. Despite this, the judge replied: «Yes, but I am not going to admit him…; no, this gentleman comes without a lawyer and has to assume the consequences of coming without a lawyer, because if not, this is a joke.
Next, the lawyer for the defendant interrogated the witness and once said interrogation was finished, he left the room and the next witness was called, giving himself a turn to question the defendant again, without the intervention of the plaintiff in the lawsuit. Immediately afterwards, a third witness appeared, and the same pattern was repeated; The judge once again prevented the plaintiff’s intervention, repeating the above in the sense of giving intervention to only one of the parties.
On the other hand, when it was time to speak to orally formulate conclusions at the hearing, the head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction Number 4 of Majadahonda asked the plaintiff if he maintained the legal actions, “at which time he expressed his complaint because he considered that his right to a defense had been violated by preventing him from asking questions of the witnesses that he himself had proposed because he had come without a lawyer”. Given this, the magistrate replied: “Yes, but then the trial takes place in other ways.”