Absolution for Camps

If absolution was the justice Francisco Camps demanded in his summing up at his trial on bribery charges for having received dress suits from the Gürtel kickbacks-for-contracts ring, at least five of the nine members of the jury bowed to his request by delivering an innocent verdict.

The wink of complicity the former premier of the Valencia region directed at the jury while making his appeal could not be more explicit. "I have come to seek the justice dispensed by my fellow citizens," he said as he turned his eyes toward its nine members.

Whether the verdict of not guilty handed down is the product of well-founded and coherent analysis of the evidence presented in the course of the trial or Camps' invocation to civic comradeship (ideological as well?) is something that will not be known until the answers to the questions given to the jury members by the judge are scrutinized.

During the trial, Camps made no bones about availing himself of the backing afforded to him by a majority of his fellow Valencianos at the ballot box as proof of his innocence. The prosecutor assigned to present the state's case should have reminded the jury that such a strategy constituted an attempt to bring politics into the courtroom. In his summing up, Camps also addressed the members of the jury to remind them that they were not dealing with a political trial.

What can be gathered from the verdict is that at least five of the jury members reached the conclusion that it had not been proven that the Gürtel ring had paid for dress suits acquired by Camps and Ricardo Costa in the Milano and Forever Young stores in Madrid. This was the case despite the fact that Víctor Campos and Rafael Betoret — the other two high-ranking officials implicated in the same case — acknowledged before the justice system that the ring with close business ties to the Camps government did in fact pay for theirs.

Once again, only the written argument drawn up by the presiding judge will reveal how the members of the jury who decided to cast their vote in favor of absolution weighed up the evidence presented, and their reasons for rejecting it. Only then will we know the basis for the verdict and whether or not what we have witnessed is a gross miscarriage of justice that needs to be rectified through a bench trial.

]The absolution of Camps and Costa by a popular jury could be construed as a gesture of citizens' complacency when it comes to corrupt politicians — just like the votes cast for them at the ballot box. Those who should feel less than pleased, although they might say otherwise, are Camps and Costa's successors in the Valencia region, to whom it has befallen the stewardship of a ruinous legacy. Their absolution in court, in the same manner as the votes cast for them in the ballot box, could inspire chest-puffing and mischief-making by Camps and his band of loyal followers.

Rajoy, who backed Camps when he was an ally in his power struggle within the Popular Party, only to drop him when he became an obstacle in his march toward Moncloa, might feel content, but not very. Camps could ask him for restitution.