John Steinbeck on love: nothing good gets away. A letter to his eldest son.

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

The dilemma of unfair public judgement

Ms. Lagarde is facing criminal charges for negligence. The alleged negligence resulted in the misuse of more than 400 million euros from public funds. Being that the situation should the I.M.F. President resign from her position?

That situation is not unknown in Spain, where, more often than desired, politicians are asked to resign from their positions because of criminal proceedings against them. The dilemma is that if that public individuals continue holding their positions there is a risk of overshadowing the institution represented but on the other hand anyone is innocent until proven guilty.

Which scenario would be better for protecting fundamental rights? That one of a public officer stripped of his position and later absolved or the one of a public officer in office whilst the proceedings are pending and then found guilty?

I would certainly choose the second one, since it ensures better protection of the rights of the defendant. Otherwise it could seem that the judgement is brought forward to the moment of the indictment, which should be completely disapproved in modern societies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/business/international/christine-lagarde-trial-imf-france.html

¿La instrucción en manos del Fiscal?

Comparto las interesantes reflexiones de Pilar Álvarez Mendez, Fiscal de la Fiscalía de Huelva. Parece ser que cada vez más voces se alzan en favor de una reforma del órgano sobre el que debería recaer la instrucción de los procedimientos penales. Ahora bien, como se señala en el artículo, no puede de cualquier forma y a cualquier precio.  

Tal y como apunta la Fiscal que suscribe el artículo que comparto, lo cierto es que de hacerse bien, se podría conseguir no sólo cierta agilidad en la llevanza de los procedimientos penales, sino también mayor especialización en las instrucciones. 

Bien es cierto que somos el único país de nuestro entorno que cuenta con un sistema en el que la instrucción no recae en la Fiscalía, sin embargo el problema se vislumbra cuando se ha de hablar de la (cuestionable) independencia, cuando menos formal, en las que los Fiscales se encuentran. 

A mi modo de ver, para que la introducción de esta paradigmático cambio sea respetuosa con la independencia con la que sí cuentan nuestros Jueces de Instrucción, deberían modificarse numerosos aspectos del órgano que ahora podría tomar el relevo en las instrucciones de los procesos penales. 

http://hayderecho.com/2016/12/12/el-ministerio-fiscal-la-instruccion-y-el-peligro-de-empezar-la-casa-por-el-tejado/

Food for thought

"The fault lines over the mass graves run deep in Spanish politics and society. During the transition after Franco’s death in 1975, as Spain edged toward the re-establishment of democracy, the spirit of the age was enshrined in the political parties’ self-explanatory Pact of Forgetting. There was no reckoning, no equivalent of de-Nazification of the civil service, judiciary or security forces. To cement the spirit of top-down amnesia, a 1977 amnesty law prevents any legal proceedings into crimes committed during the civil war and the dictatorship; Spain would not enter into anything resembling a “truth and justice” commission.

This institutional blockade has not gone unnoticed outside Spain. In 2013, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances censured Mr. Rajoy’s government and the Spanish judiciary, and demanded Spain overturn the amnesty law and stop obstructing investigations into the hundreds of thousands of missing victims. Ana Menéndez Pérez, Spain’s permanent representative to the United Nations, rejected the suggestion that the Spanish judiciary was not independent and impartial".

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/opinion/the-ghosts-spain-tries-to-ignore.html?_r=1&referer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FnGkugV6GLg

Algunas notas sobre la responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica en los EE.UU.

Mucho podríamos escribir sobre la responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica en los EE.UU., paradigma de dicho tipo de responsabilidad criminal y pionera en la introducción de la misma. Es notoria la influencia que el ordenamiento norteamericano ha tenido sobre el español en lo referente a la responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica, fenómeno que incluso ha sido denominado por la doctrina como la «americanización del Derecho penal»[1].

A pesar de lo interesante y el entusiasmo sobre el régimen de responsabilidad instaurado en el país norteamericano, a fin de no extralimitarnos y abusar de la paciencia del lector, centraremos la explicación en una breve y sucinta introducción al funcionamiento de dicha responsabilidad en EE.UU. –concretamente haremos referencia a las Organizational Sentencing Guidelines (OSG), el mecanismo de atribución de responsabilidad y los denominados deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) y non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) –.

Siguiendo a ARLEN[2] y a ORTIZ DE URBINA[3], ambos reconocidos especialistas en la materia, podríamos señalar como notas características más relevantes en cuanto a la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas en el ordenamiento americano las que siguen: 

• La responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica permite la imposición de elevadas sanciones.
• La responsabilidad de los entes, tanto penal como civil, reviste carácter de objetiva respecto de las infracciones cometidas por sus empleados en el ejercicio de sus funciones.
• La responsabilidad penal incluye, pese a su objetividad, importantes elementos de responsabilidad subjetiva: si se cumplen ciertos deberes de diligencia y colaboración con las autoridades, las empresas pueden evitar la persecución penal o la condena.
• En los últimos años se ha producido un importante uso por parte del ministerio fiscal de acuerdos de aplazamiento de la persecución («Deferred Prosecution Agreements», también denominados DPA) o de acuerdos de no persecución (Non Prosecution Agreements, NPA), habitualmente condicionados al pago de multas y al acometimiento de medidas de reformas estructural por parte de las empresas[4].

Pese a que hubo alguna sentencia anterior[5], podemos decir que el inicio de dicho régimen en EE.UU. se halla en la seminal Sentencia Hudson[6], cuyo supuesto de hecho versaba sobre una operadora ferroviaria en la que el administrador de la misma había ofrecido descuentos a las empresas refinadoras de azúcar, infringiendo así la Elkins Act, que prohibía las discriminaciones en el establecimiento de precios.

En ella, ante la incipiente necesidad de reacción frente al ínfimo control al que resultaban sometidas las empresas de ferrocarriles, se decidió aplicar la teoría de la agency theory del ámbito civil al ámbito penal. Y ello «no porque el principal de hecho participe en el acto ilícito o fraudulento, sino porque la conducta se lleva a cabo en beneficio del principal», tras lo cual decidió «dar un único paso adelante» y, por «razones de interés público»[7].

A pesar de que dicha transposición fue criticada, resultaba determinante, tal y como señala GÓMEZ-JARA[8], dado el papel preponderante que las empresas estaban arrogándose en la vida social y económica del país.

Baste decir, pues, que el modelo de la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas norteamericano se basa en el modelo de la responsabilidad vicarial («respondeat superior»), aunque, dadas las deficiencias del mismo, ha ido modulándose, toda vez que resultaba ilógico, tanto por exceso –cuando la acción de cualquier empleado podría desencadenar la responsabilidad del ente–, como por defecto –en aquellos supuestos en los que al no hallarse los responsables individuales, la empresa quedase sin castigo–.

De esta suerte, se han ido introduciendo criterios como los del Código Penal Modelo (Model Penal Code, MPC) donde, pese a que dicho Código no haya sido adoptado por todos los Estados, se establece que la sociedad únicamente responderá en aquellos casos en los que un directivo de la empresa haya cometido el delito en nombre y representación de la entidad (scope of employment) y en su beneficio (intent to benefit)[9], o como los de la teoría del conocimiento colectivo para imputar responsabilidad a las personas jurídicas incluso cuando no se pueda dirigir el procedimiento contra persona física alguna[10].

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[1] Vid por todos, NIETO MARTÍN, A. (2008). La responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas: esquema de un modelo de responsabilidad penal. En el mismo sentido, NIETO MARTÍN, A. (2007). ¿Americanización o europeización del Derecho Penal económico? Revista Penal. Vol. 19. Enero 2007, donde específicamente se dice: «No estamos asistiendo a un proceso de convergencia consensuado entre distintos ordenamientos independientes, sino a un proceso creciente de americanización del derecho de los negocios y del derecho penal de los negocios. Si hacemos arqueología legislativa, y examinamos el origen de las normativas comunes, veremos que tras ellas se encuentran directrices de política jurídica que nacen de los EEUU y desde allí se extienden al resto del mundo. No existe un intercambio libre de «soluciones jurídicas» entre los distintos ordenamientos en que conforman la comunidad internacional, sino una aproximación de todos ellos al sistema imperante en los Estados Unidos».

[2] Vid. ARLEN, J. (2012). Corporate Criminal Liability: Theory and Evidence. Hared (ed.), Research Handbook on the Economics of Criminal Law, Elgar Publishing 2012, pp. 144 y ss. Página 146.

[3] Vid. ORTIZ DE URBINA, Responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas, cit., p. 1.  

[4] Vid. en este sentido Garrett, B. (2014). Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations. 1st ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

[5] Vid. Villegas García, M. (2016). La responsabilidad criminal de las personas jurídicas. 1st ed. Cizur Menor (Navarra): Thomson Reuters Aranzadi. La United States v. Van Schaik, 134 F. 592 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1904), «que versaba sobre un incendio de un barco de vapor, en el que murieron 900 pasajeros y que dio lugar a la formulación de acusaciones penales por homicidio imprudente, no sólo contra determinadas personas físicas, sino también contra la compañía propietaria del barco. Esta última, frente a dicha acusación, alegó que la pena que las leyes del estado de Nueva York preveían para este delito eran la prisión o los trabajos forzados, penas que lógicamente ella, que era una corporation, no podía cumplir, y por tanto impedía que se formulara contra ella dicha acusación. Esta pretensión no fue acogida, sin embargo, por el Tribunal. Para dicho órgano el hecho de que el castigo previsto en la Ley no se pudiera imponer a la persona jurídica, no era motivo bastante para concluir que una compañía dedicada al transporte por mar de pasajeros no pudiera ser declarada culpable por causar su muerte, si dicha muerte derivaba de la falta de observancia del cuidado debido, y de la misma manera que sería responsable por ello en vía civil. El hecho de que fuera una persona jurídica no debía conducir a su impunidad».

[6] New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company v. United States, 212 U.S. 481, 494

[7] Vid. ORTIZ DE URBINA, Responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas, cit., p. 10.

[8] Vid. Gómez-Jara Díez, C. (2006). La responsabilidad penal de las empresas en los EE.UU. Madrid: Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces. Páginas 45 y ss.

[9] Vid. Código Penal Modelo, Sección 2.07. Responsabilidad de sociedades, asociaciones y personas que actúen bajo un deber o en su nombre. «Section 2.07. Liability of Corporations, Unincorporated Associations and Persons Acting, or Under a Duty to Act in Their Behalf. (1) A corporation may be convicted of the commission of an offense if: (a) the offense is a violation or the offense is defined by a statute other than the Code in which a legislative purpose to impose liability on corporations plainly appears and the conduct is performed by an agent of the corporation acting in behalf of the corporation within the scope of his office or employment, except that if the law defining the offense designates the agents for whose conduct the corporation is accountable or the circumstances under which it is accountable, such provisions shall apply; or (b) the offense consists of an omission to discharge a specific duty of affirmative performance imposed on corporations by law; or (c) the commission of the offense was authorized, requested, commanded, performed or recklessly tolerated by the board of directors or by a high managerial agent acting in behalf of the corporation within the scope of his office or employment»; así como Restatement of the law third, Agency, 2006, vol. 1, pág. 17.  Los Restatements son los los documentos realizados por el American Law sobre distintas áreas del Derecho.

[10] Vid. GÓMEZ-JARA DÍEZ, La responsabilidad penal de las empresas, cit., p. 61. 

Vote(s)

¿Acaso quedan hoy políticos así? 

«Pues entonces, si afirmáis que la mujer no influye para nada en la vida política del hombre, estáis -fijaos bien- afirmando su personalidad, afirmando la resistencia a acatarlos. ¿Y es en nombre de esa personalidad, que con vuestra repulsa reconocéis y declaráis, por lo que cerráis las puertas a la mujer en materia electoral? ¿Es que tenéis derecho a hacer eso? No; tenéis el derecho que os ha dado la ley, la ley que hicisteis vosotros, pero no tenéis el derecho natural fundamental, que se basa en el respeto a todo ser humano, y lo que hacéis es detentar un poder; dejad que la mujer se manifieste y veréis como ese poder no podéis seguir detentándolo»

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2006/10/01/actualidad/1159653602_850215.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CM

The Crime of Genocide under International Criminal Law

The London Agreements, in the aftermath of the WWII, served to establish an International Military Tribunal —which would be also known as the Nuremberg Tribunal— to prosecute and punish the European Axis major war criminals for the crimes committed during the war period. In its annex was included the proceeding to follow and the jurisdiction of the tribunal —which was named Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

Concretely, art. 6 included the type of crimes in which the Tribunal had jurisdiction. It’s worth mentioning that the crimes were three: (a) crimes against peace; (b) war crimes; and (c) crimes against humanity. These concern the planning, preparation, and waging a war of aggression. According to WERLE[1] the difference is that the criminalization of war crimes serves to protect the rights of foreign citizens, crimes against humanity include offenses against one’s own citizens. Thus, the domestic arena is also included in international law. The rationale is based on the idea that certain serious attacks on individuals gain international dimension when they are systematically aimed at a specific civilian population.

Although it was not specifically called genocide either in the Charter or the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, genocide was actually included in the provisions under the umbrella of crimes against humanity. However, what really draws my attention, is that it was then that for the very first time in history, individuals were held responsible for the acts committed. It was back then, in 1945, where international law made a step further and decided to indict and prosecute war criminals. This was a valiant, though a no-risk leap, that allowed the international community to prosecute those who intended to change the world order at the expense of the interests of the international community as a whole.

Unfortunately, not all the efforts were focused on the same direction. After the initial momentum, during the Cold War, International Criminal Law suffered a standstill and no significant progress was done. It was in 1995 where, after 40 years, the UN established the ICTR and the ICTY to make further development on that field.

The concept of genocide it is not trivial, even more when the use of the word has been spread and universally accepted. It was officially first established as such in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Even today there are doubts whether the Convention only grants jurisdiction over acts of genocide to the territorial state or an international court that was not stablished by that time or, conversely, pursuant to art. 1 of the Convention, it provides state parties grounds to prosecute genocide on the basis of universal jurisdiction[2]. The duty to prosecute is a question that has been raised so many times in this contexts that seems that there is not still a clear answer to that yet.

In order to give some thoughtful ideas on the crime of genocide, it is interesting to point out the actions covered by the Genocide Convention. Before doing so, it’s important to bear in mind, as WERLE stated, that the definition of Genocide was copied from the Genocide Convention and literally transferred to both the ICTY, ICTR and ICC Statutes[3]. This is why in this sense I will refer to them indistinctively.

All the aforementioned provisions include as punishable: those acts consisting of (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflict conditions of life to bring the group to destruction; (d) impose measures to prevent births; (e) transfer children to other groups with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

From the reading of the provision one can infer that to stand before a genocide, it is necessary that the perpetrator wants the destruction of the group. It is not necessary to actually achieve the purpose or even partially harm the group; the willingness to commit the act is sufficient. Then, the second requisite is to do one of the specified actions. It cannot be others than the actions included in the article 6 par. from letter (a) to (e). And last but not least, it should be national, ethnical or racial groups.

Linking this last point with the conclusion, I would like to mention two things that may be seen as obvious but sometimes forgotten: the first one is that international criminal law, as international law itself, appears as a sheer politicized tool that serves big countries interests. The second thing regarding genocide is that there are many things left aside because this law is certainly constrained by politics. For instance, both political groups and suppressing cultural norms of a group don’t constitute genocide and hence were excluded from the Convention as a result of certain nation states objecting[4]. 

Therefore, no one can state that a cultural genocide has been committed, simply because the international tools don’t include it as such.

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[1] WERLE, G.: Principles of International Criminal Law, OUP, 2014, p. 7.

[2] See both Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia, ICJ, Judgment of 11 July 1996 and Jorgić v. Germany, ECtHR, judgment, 2007

[3] See: art. 2 of the ICTR Staute; art. 4 of ICTY Statute; and art. 6 ff the ICC

[4] WERLE G.: Principles of International Criminal Law, OUP, 2014, p. 300