"The great challenge of Latin American and Spanish justice, once we have acquired a system of guarantees, is to offer credibility to citizens," said the magistrate of the Supreme Court of Spain, Pablo Llarena.
The magistrate made his remarks during the conference "Challenges in the justice systems of Ibero-America", in which he pondered the transition from an inquisitorial accusatory system to one of guarantees, in which the procedures have been advancing to defend the rights of the citizen.
The jurist identified the elements that can influence the loss of credibility in the criminal process, among these he cited discursive reasons and others of inefficiency in the procedure, the improper application of resolutions or criminal decisions, apart from the politicization of justice to the extent that it may exist and corruption.
Likewise, Llarena explained that the prejudice of criminal justice comes firstly from what is transmitted by people who have had contact with justice; secondly, from the opinion they extract from the media and thirdly from the opinion of lawyers and jurists.
"But this is perceived, sometimes wrongly, by the citizens, who have the feeling that after hearing us talk only about the guarantee of the accused, they end up thinking that there has been a tectonic shift of rights, and that the rights of the victims have been transferred to the criminals," said the magistrate.
The jurist Pablo Llarena recommended that the jurisdictional bodies of the Ibero-American countries have an expert in communication who can clearly express to the public what the jurisdictional work consists of.
During his presentation he explained that society looks for news at the source of justice, assigning each media outlet its own court reporter, and if they do not find it in the justice system, they turn to the procedural parties, who in turn do not offer them reliable information but biased information.
Likewise, he urged to centralize the information of the courts or jurisdictional bodies "and to provide information on the matters of interest, explaining which were the legal elements analyzed to adopt that decision", during his participation in the Sixth edition of the Judicial Power 2024 Conference.
Pablo Llarena received his law degree from the University of Valladolid, University College of Burgos, and practiced law from 1986 to 1988. He is a university lecturer. He was appointed judge of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court on January 28, 2016 by the General Council of the Spanish Judiciary.