Spain restricts courts' world human-rights role

Oct 15, 2009, 15:06 GMT

Madrid - The Spanish parliament Thursday approved a bill curbing the controversial role of the country's judges in pursuing human rights cases worldwide.

Judges will only be able to investigate alleged human rights abuses abroad if they involve Spanish citizens or if the suspects are in Spain.

Judges can only investigate cases which are not being probed in the country where where the alleged crimes were committed, or by international courts.

The law will now enter into force after its definitive version was approved with an absolute majority.

The governing socialists and the opposition conservatives backed the law while some smaller regionalist and leftist parties voted against it.

The law was drafted amid rising pressure on the Madrid government to restrict judges' scope for investigating human rights cases in other countries, a crusading role which the National Court embarked on a decade ago.

The National Court is currently investigating around a dozen such cases, ranging Latin America and Rwanda to Tibet and the US prison camp in Guantanamo, Cuba.

The court's actions have created tension with countries including Israel and China.

Those wanting to limit the investigations have argued that Spain could not become 'the human rights cop of the world.'

Human rights activists however said 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.