The head of the Court of First Instance number 6 of Alicante has declared the illegal nature and has annulled the conviction and sanctions imposed on an Army captain, now deceased, by a Francoist court martial in 1940.
The order, the first of its kind to be issued in the Valencian Community, thus applies the reform of the Democratic Memory Law approved in October 2022 that affects the files of the Voluntary Jurisdiction Law related to judicial declarations of past events.
According to the Communication office of the Valencian TSJ, the purpose of this legal reform is to guarantee the right to justice in relation to the human rights violations that occurred during the Civil War and the Dictatorship, as well as to seek reparation and personal recognition for those who They suffered that persecution.
The magistrate understands that in this case all the requirements are met to grant the request made by a son of the retaliated soldier and declare the illegal and null nature of both the conviction and the sanction imposed on his father.
The soldier, who had obtained the rank of captain, as first in the competitive examination, was arrested on March 31, 1939 and later tried by the court martial for the crime of aiding the rebellion.
Finally, on September 13, 1940, the court-martial in Alicante sentenced him to twenty years of minor confinement and demoted him in his job to sergeant, that is, non-commissioned officer, after being denied his promotions to second lieutenant, lieutenant and captain.
Last year, the captain’s son filed a voluntary jurisdiction file to obtain a judicial declaration on the reality and circumstances of certain past events.
In his appearance in court, the plaintiff stated that his father had no ideology and had served “on different fronts,” when the court-martial sentence justified the sentence for ideological reasons, expressly pointing out the “help” that the defendant “He lent non-continuously to the red cause.”
The head of the Court, with the favorable report of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, has now fully upheld the plaintiff’s request and, after annulling the sentence, has recognized the retaliated soldier’s graduation as an officer of the Security and Assault Corps on the officer scale, with the job of captain, which is what he held at the time of his conviction.
