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Archive for March, 2009

Silence, please

By: psr, 2009-03-19

I usually condemn from this blog the Spanish penal code and the Spanish judicial system and its practices when they impose weak and slim sentences, but this time I have to applaud them (to some extent).

A bar owner in Barcelona has been sentenced to 5 years in jail for disrupting the lives of neighbors with the noise from the bar. The bar lacked operating permits, and did not comply with any regulation on soundproofing. Neighbors had to stand one year of loud noises at night, despite several formal complaints from neighbors to authorities about the noise.

Offenders like this bar owner know that the judicial system is slow and that sentences are rarely tough on them, so they risk skipping compliance with regulations, with their …

2009-03-19 | Rights - Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

False privacy protection

By: psr, 2009-03-18

Finland’s Parliament passed a law allowing companies to track workers’ e-mail messages, but not to read the messages themselves. With this law in effect, companies will be able to retain information about the e-mails, such as the sender, recipient, the sent and received time and date, and whether the email contained attachments [ref].

Even with such a weak law (it does not permit reading the content of messages), some opposed it arguing it “gives employers more powers than the police, and could lead to an erosion of Finland’s proud heritage as a world leader in human rights” [ref].

It is rumoured that Nokia was pushing for such a law to pass (for it was dubbed “Lex Nokia”). If it were so, they should be applauded for …

2009-03-18 | Economy - Europe - Rights | Trackback | No Comments »

Take the law into one’s own hands

By: psr, 2009-03-03

After a bomb set off by criminal terrorists ETA (or their support groups, it’s all the same) last February 23 in Lazcano (Guipuzcoa) destroyed the home of Emilio Gutiérrez, a local neighbour, Emilio went on a rampage against the local ETA-supporting bar, destroying part of it.

Emilio did what just about every spaniard ever wanted to do in reaction to ETA. It is not right to take the law into one’s own hands, but what are we to do when the State no longer guarantees security, ensuring protection from criminals?

ETA and its supporters roam about many towns in the Basque Country (and elsewhere), and the State does nothing to arrest them, close down their financing institutions (bars included), or remove their propaganda from the streets. …

2009-03-03 | Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

Defenceless society

By: psr, 2009-03-01

Life imprisonment: yes or no. This debate has briefly appeared on Spanish media in the last few days, after a young woman was murdered in Sevilla. The Spanish penal code does not consider life imprisonment for any type of crime.

Those against this type of sentence argue that the Spanish Constitution does not admin life imprisonment, but in fact the Constitution does not mention it at all. It is absolutely untrue that life imprisonment is incompatible with the Constitution. They argue that such sentence would be “degrading”, and this is not allowed by the Constitution. However, this is merely a matter of opinion: is a 30 or 40 year jail sentence “decent”? is life imprisonment “degrading”?. They can both be …