In Alicante, the First Instance Court Number 6 has ruled that the sentence and penalties previously imposed on a deceased army captain by a Francoist war council in 1940 were illegal and nullified. The decision marks a notable judicial step in applying the Democracy Law reform enacted in October 2022, which affects voluntary jurisdiction files connected to judicial declarations of past events.
That reform aims to guarantee justice regarding human rights violations committed during the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. It also seeks to secure compensation and personal recognition for those who suffered persecution during that era.
The judge concluded that all the prerequisites were met for the request filed by the son of the repressed officer, thereby declaring the condemnation and the associated sanction illegal and void.
The officer, who had achieved the rank of captain through the competitive examination process, was detained on March 31, 1939 and subsequently tried by the war council for the offense of aiding the rebellion. The auto records the justification of his arrest at the port of Alicante, citing the alleged intent to flee as the reason for detaining him as an immigrant.
On September 13, 1940, the war council convicted him in Alicante to twenty years of minor imprisonment and reduced him in rank to sergeant, an enlisted noncommissioned officer, after being denied promotions to ensign, lieutenant, and captain.
The captain’s son had submitted a voluntary jurisdiction file the previous year to obtain a judicial declaration about the facts and circumstances of specified past events.
In its court appearance, the plaintiff stated that his father did not hold ideological convictions and had served on multiple fronts, while the war council’s sentence had justified the punishment on ideological grounds, explicitly noting the processed person’s “assistance” to the red cause in a non-continuous manner.
The judge, with the favorable report from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, has now fully granted the plaintiff’s request and, after annulling the sentence, has restored the officer’s rank as a Security and Assault Corps officer at the time of the conviction, holding the rank of captain as his official status.