The Standing Committee of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) unanimously agreed on Tuesday to accept the processing of the protection request submitted by the Cataruga judge investigating the management of Dana Valencia, Nuria Ruiz Tobara, legal sources told elDiario.es. The judge denounced that the illustrious Bar Association of Valencia (ICAV) had incurred “serious interference” in the exercise of its judicial function and demanded protection from the Board of Judges. Now, the authority gives the professional company 10 days to submit the allegations.
The events go back to a few weeks ago, when the ICAV asked the judge to stop the “defamation” of lawyer José María Bueno Manzanares, who defends Emilio Argueso, the former regional secretary for emergency situations investigated in the case, as reported by the newspaper Valencia Plaza.
Bueno Manzanares went to the IVAC center seeking protection after the coach’s decision to open a separate article to “establish the origin” of his punishment for the content of a writing in which he made dangerous insinuations about her and her husband, Jorge Martínez Ribera, president of the Fourth Investigative Court of Valencia. In the same way, the judge revealed that a lawyer “surreptitiously” recorded her husband and minor daughter in the courtroom after giving their statements.
On the other hand, the ICAV also granted protection to lawyer Pilar Esquinas, who conducted the private trial of Yolanda Garrido Rosa, who lost her brother, sister-in-law and four-year-old nephew on October 29, 2024. The judge ended up dismissing lawyer Pilar Esquinas.
She stated in a document that Yolanda Garrido threatened her during a demonstration in Madrid, and reviewed the series of hoaxes that were exaggerated by both Garrido and her lawyer, both of whom are from the world of conspiracy. The trainer considered that it was “completely consistent with the position” of the defense of investigator Emilio Argueso, which represents “a clear violation of rights and a clear procedural fraud.”
In her letter to the CGPJ, the judge stated that the requests made by ICAV “constitute serious interference with the exercise of judicial function”. He added: “Although it has already been clearly alerted in the allegations made by me regarding the complaints submitted by the representatives of Emilio Argueso Torres who were investigated and the representative of Yolanda Garrido Rosa, the ICAV carries out assessments and requests on cases that are fully subject to appropriate judicial oversight,” according to documents to which elDiario.es was able to access.
The Judiciary Law stipulates in its Article 14 that judges and examining magistrates who consider themselves “disturbed or disturbed by their independence” must inform the CGPJ, without prejudice to the implementation of measures absolutely necessary to ensure the administration of justice and the restoration of the legal order.