Isabel Giménez, substitute magistrate of the court of first instance number 19 of Barcelona, ??has written a letter to the minor whose father, accused of sexist violence, claimed to be with her despite the restraining order issued against him.
The sentence in itself is not innovative, since, for almost three years, according to organic law 8/2021 on Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescence, and decree-law 26/2021 that modified the Civil Code of Catalonia, the parent subject to criminal proceedings is deprived of custody – and also of visits.
The judge’s letter, on the other hand, is unusual because of the approach to a nine-year-old girl who had to testify behind closed doors about her parents’ fights. He thanks her for her courage and admits that it must have been very painful and tiring to answer so many questions. “You have been very brave in telling us some of the things that scare you and that the reason why you don’t want to be with him is because you are very afraid that he will hurt his mother again”, he writes to her.
In the award-winning Anatomy of a Fall, a woman is tried as the alleged author of her husband’s death and she declares at the trial: “Sometimes the couple is a kind of chaos and they are all lost, right? Sometimes they fight together, sometimes alone and sometimes against each other. It happens”. From the beginning, the viewer empathizes with the character of a writer who shares a lonely house with her husband and son in the heart of the French Alps. But he sympathizes even more with the boy, who is blind, who witnesses the court sessions where his mother’s life is torn apart and morally judged.
In one sequence, the minor is summoned by the judge, who tells him that she does not want him to attend the next session. That it can be too hard for him since he cannot censor or dampen the statements because you have to get to the truth. The boy responds with surprising maturity that he prefers to attend to find out first hand.
The historical lawyer María José Varela does not doubt the law: “Judges must protect the minor; in our legislations, the basic principle of any process lies in your interest. The most important thing is that they get to court so they can help the victims. The most paralyzing thing that violence brings is fear.” The nine-year-old girl to whom Judge Giménez has written a letter calling her “brave” refers to her father as “the man who was about to kill my mother”.
In the sentence handed down, Isabel Giménez also warns the parent of the fine that will be imposed if he files a report due to parental alienation syndrome (SAP), of which the General Council of the Judicial Power states that “no has a medico-scientific basis”. The SAP was coined by a professor of psychiatry who argued that “children suffer from society’s exaggerated reaction to pedophilia”. And he not only encouraged her, but also treated mothers who reported sexual abuse of their children by the father or another family member as hysterical.
Since the beginning of the year, seven children have been killed by their parents. A larva of hatred, and also the will of evil, are feeding in the cross fire between a couple. Many of the attacks on women and children happen after the breakup, when the video game snack has returned to the calm of the afternoon. I don’t want to think about the mixture of bewilderment and horror that the little one must endure before dying at the hands of his father or to witness the agony of the mother. Getting away from it all deserves a letter.
