The Second Division of the District Court of Valencia overruled Vox’s appeal, which appeared in the case as a popular accusation, against the judge’s order of September 1 that had rejected the request that two agents of the organic unit of the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard of Valencia, who had prepared a report that had been seriously questioned by the coach, testify. The order, issued unanimously by the division’s six judges, rejects the far-right party’s appeal and considers that “opening the investigation to repetitive, irrelevant or useless procedures would further complicate the investigative activity and could cause unnecessary delays.”
This is the report that the judge rejected and annulled, with a coercive decision, because the order given by the instructor to the Armed Institute to prepare a strict technical sequence for the valley flood that caused the death of 230 people on October 29, 2024, had completely failed. On the contrary, the report included assessments of the actions of the Aemet organization and the Júcar Hydrographic Consortium (CHJ) and did not even take into account the relevant documents appearing in the case.
On July 30, the trainer ruled out that the Guardia Civil’s assessments had “criminal efficacy” and threw the document into the trash in terms of evidence, even though she had included it in the procedure.
The order notes that the report was prepared as a “document to assist in the investigation” of 230 alleged reckless homicides. The decision adds: “It was therefore attached to the file.”
On the other hand, the Court of Valencia states that the investigative phase “must be governed by criteria of importance, with the oral trial – if possible – being the moment in which the evidentiary efforts incumbent on each party must appear in their full scope.”
In addition, it also says that a judicial investigation “cannot aim to confirm a particular hypothesis about the criminal facts that justify the investigation, but rather to provide all that information that seems, in advance, appropriate to explain what happened.” On the contrary, the “progressive contribution” of information “allows us to put forward a certain hypothesis to reconstruct the facts, based on the data that emerges.”
The decision, which Judge Jose Manuel Ortega spoke about, forms the focus of the action ordered by Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra.
Thus, in Dana’s case “knowledge of the quality of information that has been accessed by those with the power to make decisions, the moments at which it has arrived, the deliberative processes that have developed with the information available, the information used in said processes, the moments at which one might be in a position to make said decisions, and, where appropriate, the reasons that may exist for delaying them, constitute some of the criteria that allow us to distinguish when proposed actions should be accepted or rejected.”
The order also blames Santiago Abascal’s party for not specifying the “additional contribution” that the declaration of Civil Guard agents would make to this measure.
Prosecutor: “Not necessary, useful or relevant”
Thus, the court agrees with the OTP’s standards, that the diligence requested by Vox “is not necessary, useful, or relevant for purposes of the investigation, because the proceedings include a report in which they intend the agents to testify and thus can support their claims during the development of the proceeding.”
The Prosecutor concluded that if the objectionable exercise of diligence were admitted “it would prejudice the treatment of the already extensive investigative proceedings”. The Public Prosecution also referred the intervention of the Institute’s armed agents to a virtual oral trial.
Fox’s appeal, in the prosecutor’s view, did not even allege “sufficient cause” for the additional diligence and did not indicate what he “considered necessary for their questioning or what might be appropriate for them to explain.”
Rules out new measures on vorata
On the other hand, in a second order, the same division of the Court of Valencia rejects the appeal of one of the special charges against the same judge’s order. The decision, in addition to expanding the Civil Guard report, refused to take testimony as witnesses from several officials of the Jokar Hydrographic Union (CHJ) in relation to the Vorata Dam.
The decision considers that the appeal “does not specify the grounds that allow the decision to be questioned” taken by the judge, “since no relevant data appear that would allow it to be said that the testimony of those responsible for the 2022 report on the Vorata Dam could provide information of importance to clarify the facts that are the subject of this investigation.”
The order notes that the instructions do not address “whether there are deficiencies in the construction, maintenance or maintenance of the dam that could generate typical criminal risk situations.”