Navarra has been a pioneer to approve a law that recognizes and repairs the victims of pederasty within the Catholic Church – Law Foral 24/2022, of July 5. A rule that entered into force three and a half years after José Luis Pérez denounced in Cadena Ser Navarra the sexual abuse suffered at the La Reina Bridge Paders. The then Minister of Migration and Justice Policies, Eduardo Santos (Pamplona, 51 years), has just published a book –Restorative justice and victims of pederasty in the Catholic ChurchEditorial School of Mediation – in which the process collects.
His arrival at libraries coincides with. The archbishopric will compensate the violated people in their diocese and the congregations will do it to those who suffered abuse at the hands of their clergy. Santos considers that this advance is “logical” and that “she fills the hole that was missing in the law”, but criticizes that the institution is distributed by the complainants: “The Catholic Church in front of society is a ‘all’ represented by the archbishopric. In Navarra there is, and clear criteria of compensation, regardless of where the money then comes out. ” Criteria that must be agreed with the regional government because “nothing is alien to the public in this issue.”
It is a public problem and that led to the first government of María Chivite (PSN, Geroa Bai and Podemos Ahal-Dugu) to prepare a specific regulation. In front, a blank folio, because they only had international examples. An investigation was commissioned to the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) that identified 58 victims since the forties of the last century and, at least, 31 aggressors. Then, the department opted for restorative justice. “It is a way of doing justice that does not focus on the punishment of the victimizer. We have a victim to whom, as far as possible, we have to restore; a perpetrator who is not only worth punishing, will also have to recognize the damage caused. And then we have the community, which has a lot to say because if not, a private process would be articulated in which we would be giving power to the victimizer with money or possibilities.” It is a justice that “does not exclude punishment, criminal trial or guarantees for the perpetrator.”
Recognize that there are those who distrust the facilitators involved in these processes. In reference to Errejón case : “You can tell me, who is that facilitator? What control do we have about him? And what control do we have about that judge that says ‘to see, Elisa …’? And we have to listen to what we have to listen. And that happens every day.” Santos, a lawyer by profession, believes that in: “sometimes they ask you to stick to the facts when the only thing that means is the fear that happened.” It is a “hostile” system, we must apply changes, but it also defends its bases: “It has cost us for centuries to obtain guarantees for the defendants, such as the right not to declare itself guilty, to make it the prosecutor who tries your fault, and that we cannot throw it into the paper.”
The Foral Law explores, precisely, the restorative justice. Regulates the Parliamentary Commission for Recognition of Victims and determines repairs, which are symbolic, moral and that can also include psychological therapy. One of the complainants, for example, asked to review the school where he was abused along with an archbishopric member.
Santos, who is now a member of the Council of Navarra, agrees with the Ombudsman in which there is a “lagoon” in Navarra Law and is the absence of economic reparation, although it emphasizes that it was raised as a “first step.” “Navarra had no competencies in education and it was not a regional community when some of these events happened. So what do you do? Do you generate an inequality between when and when do you not compensate? And then,? And then, would we have achieved political consensus to approve it if there had been money in between?
The second lagoon that indicates is not having the support of what was the main political party: Navarra Sum (UPN, PP and Citizens). The formation voted against when considering that it was discriminating between victims. Santos disagrees: “There is discrimination when treated differently situations that are objectively the same. Here we talk about victims, many old women, with the prescribed issues, without any articulated window. If this wants to compare me with a case that now occurs, for example, in a sports field where social pressure is much greater, the Prosecutor’s Office will act … Well, I believe that the principle of equality is not violated.”
In 2023, Navarra publicly recognized the first victims, but the Church was not involved. The turning point occurred in January 2024, when and, as first measures, he apologized to all complainants and ordered the participation of the institution in the recognition commission. He left behind his predecessor, Francisco Pérez, who had only apologized to the victims of the Diocesan College of Puy, dependent on the archbishopric. “They ask us to apologize and I humbly do so,” he said.
Dozens of cases of sexual abuse
Despite the position held so far, Pérez recognized in his farewell the existence of a dozen cases of sexual abuse in the diocese since 2007. For Santos, the route made by the Navarra Church is the result of this restorative policy and denies that they be pressed to not force the Church to recognize their responsibility: “You cannot put preconditions to begin a process of responsible for the victim. Between the dialogue, understand the victims, and take responsibility. ”
Santos does not believe that the steps taken by the Navarra Church will mark a turning point nationwide. “Navarra is much more advanced to the extent that. In Spain they do not have that pressure. There is a report from the Ombudsman, but nothing has been done.” It also affects the contradictions between ecclesiastical institutions. He has announced that “the report To give light They will put it in a dark room, “which” is in a completely opposite direction “to the Navarro archbishopric.
“I don’t know how the church will solve that contradiction between archbishops that will take steps forward, congregations that surely do it too, and.” “You can give a church at two or three speeds,” he warns. The case of victims recognized by the Regional Government “to which the previous archbishop requested forgiveness publicly and in the report stands out To give light It is said that they were not credible. ”
The Navarrese lawyer does not rule out that the Government of Spain can be required some kind of subsidiary responsibility for “having yielded the educational field to the Catholic Church.” In that case, it would be necessary to determine what its share of responsibility and the compensation criteria. He believes that the Central Government “needs to be taken forward”, although he acknowledges that “putting responsibility in a government would be difficult.” For Santos, the pedophilia scandal in the Church will end “when they are serious, determine that this existed and agreed with the State a procedure to address it.” A process that happens, without a doubt, by the opening of archives: “The right to the truth of the victims is there. Memory, truth, justice, repair, guarantees of non -repetition. Everything is invented.”
Santos defends the need to maintain limits and arises: “If I make a judgment 50 years after the events happen, to what extent am I making a fair trial? The tests have disappeared. The victim herself runs a tremendous risk of contradicting himself and the perpetrator, where is she?”. It is true, he points out that when you are a minor, it cannot be denounced, but the period of prescription in the Criminal Code has already been expanded: “We are going to leave all the air you need, but one thing is to think that, establishing a proportionality and limits, and another to say that it will be imprescriptible.”
