Spanish parliament votes against courts' world human rights role

May 19, 2009, 18:36 GMT

Madrid - By an overwhelming majority, Spain's parliament Tuesday evening approved a bill to curb the country's judges' controversial role in pursuing human rights cases worldwide.

The vote was 339 in favour to 8 opposed to a bill to curb the powers of the National Court's to pursue human rights violations around the world.

The reform bill stipulates that in the future, the court should only act on cases when Spanish nationals are affected.

The huge majority for the bill came after the Socialist government and the conservative opposition had agreed on the text of the reform.

The vote comes amid rising pressure on the Madrid government to restrict judges' scope for investigating alleged human rights crimes in other countries, a crusading role which the Spanish judiciary embarked on for itself a decade ago.

The Spanish courts' actions have stirred controversy in several countries. The National Court is now investigating about a dozen cases affecting eight countries: the United States, China, Guatemala, El Salvador, Rwanda, Morocco, Germany and Israel.

In the days leading up to the vote, the presidnet of the judges' group CGPJ, Carlos Divar, stated that 'We cannot become the judicial cops of the world.'

Human rights activists however argued that Spanish judges had played an important role in increasing human rights accountability.

The Spanish judiciary first became known for its interest in issues of universal justice when National Court judge Baltasar Garzon made a vain attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London in 1998.