Clean Hands (Spain)

The Clean Hands Public Officials Collective, popularly known as Clean Hands Union or simply, Clean Hands, is a Spanish union founded in 1995 as a representative organization for public service employees. Its relevance in Spain is not due to its union actions but to the abundant complaints filed on various issues that affect municipal and national politics. Its general secretary and most visible figure, the far-right Miguel Bernad, was arrested in April 2016 for the crimes of extortion, criminal organization and fraud. The entity, which declares itself "not mortgaged by anything or anyone", has practiced a kind of judicial populism in the public sphere.

Career

Founded in 1995 with headquarters on Ferraz Street in Madrid, the Manos Liminas organization is directed by Miguel Bernad Remón. Although it defines itself as a union, in the 2007 and 2011 union elections Miguel Bernad was part of the lists of the Independent Trade Union Center and Civil Servants (CSIF) in the Madrid City Council.

Among the recurring matters in which the group has been very active is the summary and trial for the 11-M attacks. Clean Hands filed complaints before Justice and the General Council of the Judiciary against judges Juan del Olmo and Baltasar Garzón, and against prosecutor Olga Sánchez, without any success. In fact, after filing a complaint against Judge Juan del Olmo, for an alleged destruction of evidence of 11-M, the Supreme Court not only dismissed it, but also denounced Manos Cleans for the crimes of false accusation and report. However, the complaint was filed by the Plaza de Castilla courts considering that there was no crime.

Between 1997 and 2009 the union filed a total of eighteen lawsuits, complaints and complaints in different areas against Judge Baltasar Garzón, all without success. Likewise, it has filed complaints against the institutions that support the Catalan sports teams.; against Never Again; against union pickets in a Madrid Metro strike or against the camping out of Sintel workers on Paseo de la Castellana. They also requested the archbishopric of Madrid to suspend a divinis the priests of the parish of San Carlos Borromeo.

Another of its action fronts is homosexuality. He has denounced to the Ombudsman the law that enabled marriages between people of the same sex; to Los Lunnis before the Ombudsman for Minors for showing a homoparental family in an episode; to José Mantero, the parish priest of Valverde del Camino who was the first Spanish Catholic priest to recognize his homosexuality; and the civil guard of Mallorca who, at the end of 2002, requested to live in the barracks house with his partner.

Miguel Bernad stated in 2006 that 70% of the complaints had been successful and that the remaining 30% were not successful due to "lack of financial means", while in 2005 he stated that they had won "30% of the complaints." lawsuits filed.

On May 16, 2007, he reported to the TSJC prosecutor's office alleged massive violations of the human rights of inmates in Catalan prisons. In April 2008, his complaint against Juan María Atutxa (PNV), Gorka Knörr (EA) and Kontxi Bilbao for refusing to dissolve the Sozialista Abertzaleak parliamentary group led to the disqualification of the accused. In July 2008, as a result of the investigations police on several cases of urban corruption, the newspaper El País brought to the attention of the public the alleged relationships between the general secretary of the union and several of the commission agents investigated.

On May 27, 2009, a new complaint was admitted for processing against Judge Baltasar Garzón, this time for alleged prevarication (having issued manifestly unfair resolutions or with knowledge of their impertinence), in the judicial procedure opened by the defendant to investigate the crimes and disappearances that occurred in Spain during the Franco dictatorship. In June 2009, he denounced the playwright and head of the list for the European elections of the Internationalist Initiative-Solidarity among Peoples (II-SP), Alfonso Sastre, for alleged threats in an opinion article published in the newspaper Gara.

In March 2011 he appeared as a private prosecutor in the Case of the false ERE of Andalusia. In February 2012 he appeared in the Nóos Case requesting the indictment of Infanta Cristina de Borbón. In this sense, Miguel Bernard He has acknowledged that he held interviews with Francisco Nicolás Gómez Iglesias where the possible economic cost of withdrawing his accusation about Cristina de Borbón was discussed.

In April 2012 he announced that he had filed a complaint against the former president of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the former Minister of Economy and former second vice president of the Government, Elena Salgado, and the head of the General Intervention of the State, José Alberto Pérez, for an alleged crime of falsification of a public document and another of damage to the national economy. The first two as "necessary collaborators and inducers" and the third as "material author."

In March 2013, he requested the indictment of two officials of the Madrid City Council governed by the Popular Party (PP), for two crimes of prevarication and influence peddling. Also at the beginning of 2013, Manos Cleans was incorporated as a popular accusation to the case opened by the Izquierda Unida (IU) complaint against Luis Bárcenas, Álvaro Lapuerta and other leaders of the Popular Party, which led to the so-called Bárcenas Case for various crimes related to the alleged illegal financing of the PP and the existence of an accounting B of the party. In July 2013 he led, together with the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), the complaint against the former president of the Orense Provincial Council José Luis Baltar for the crime of prevarication. In July 2014, Baltar was sentenced to nine years of disqualification for that crime.

In November 2018, Clean Hands denounced Francisco Sánchez Martínez, Ciudadanos politician and director of the Elche center of the CEU Cardenal Herrera University following the news about Luis Rubiales' law degree.

Public nature

Section 10 of the Provincial Court of Barcelona, in its order of March 23, 2015, confirming a previous ruling, reminded Manos Cleans that the law grants the right to popular accusation to private entities, not to public entities. According to said order, "popular action can only be vetoed by public entities."

This resolution concludes that Clean Hands is an organization that is "almost public, although its constitution has a private basis," since "its significance and legal nature is public." And he adds that «we are faced with two unequivocal conclusions: Manos Cleans is a union and, in addition, its activity focuses on the administration sector [...] The unions have constitutional recognition, receive public aid and subsidies and are dedicated to participating in collective bargaining processes. Therefore, its nature can never be private. For the Court, given that the activity of this union is focused on the administration sector, Clean Hands does not have the legitimacy to supplant the role attributed by law to the Public Prosecutor's Office, which holds the accusatory principle in defense of the general good.

Union whose only objective is to complain

With more than 6,000 members, Clean Hands does not present accounts nor hold the assemblies required by its statutes. In addition, it is not represented in any workplace, and its representativeness in the civil service is unknown.

The Barcelona Court maintains that "it seems that the activity of this union is none other than filing complaints", and recalls that "it is also the obligation of the courts to guarantee the right of defense and the speed of the process." The order warns that the activity of Clean Hands can cause "accusatory hypertrophy that can affect the right of defense and make the process even slower and create a plurality of accusations that, as long as they are not offended by the crime, cannot be have an interest in the criminal process different from that of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Investigation by the Prosecutor's Office for misappropriation and money laundering

In 2015, the Madrid Economic Crimes Prosecutor's Office investigated the leader of Hands Cleans Miguel Bernad and the union's lawyer Virginia López Negrete for an alleged crime of misappropriation and money laundering. According to the public ministry, at the end of In 2010, the funds that the union had collected from those affected by the Fórum Filatelico and Afinsa scam would have been distributed. The Court admitted the complaint against both.

The Commission for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Monetary Offenses (Sepblac) carried out an exhaustive financial intelligence report and found signs of criminal activity. For this reason, Sepblac sent a complaint to the Economic Crimes Section of the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Madrid, where they opened investigation proceedings. The financial investigation report relating to Virginia López Negrete's accounts revealed suspiciously high money movements.

Supreme Court investigation for procedural abuse

In February 2015, the Criminal Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court opened an investigation into Manos Liminas, considering that it may have committed procedural abuse. In its resolution it says that "it is not admissible for the procedural party to be dissatisfied with the sentence." respond, not with the filing of an appeal, but with the presentation of a complaint without foundation. And he adds that "if this way of reacting were to become widespread, the climate of security and calm that should surround a Court to decide would be dynamited."

Investigation by the Prosecutor's Office and the UDEF for extortion

The Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police investigated Ausbanc and Manos Cleans since November 2014 for coordinating to file complaints against all types of companies and institutions and then demanding large sums of money from them in exchange for withdrawing them.. The investigations were directed by the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz, and focused mainly on the president of Ausbanc Luis Pineda Salido, the general secretary of Hands Cleans Miguel Bernad and the lawyer Virginia López Negrete.

According to police investigations, Ausbanc intimidated by opening legal cases, for which he associated with Clean Hands, organizations directed respectively by Pineda and Bernard, who had been friends for years and were related to far-right circles.

The investigation began based on complaints from harassed former bank workers and several victims of the alleged plot, including one of the accused in the 'Nóos case'. One of the events investigated was the withdrawal in the middle of the judicial process of a complaint filed by Clean Hands, supposedly "because they had already collected the extortion"; which was denied by the union, claiming to suffer "a campaign of harassment and demolition" by the "sewers of the State directed by the vice-presidency of the Government" for having maintained the accusation against Cristina de Borbón, sister of the King.

In April 2016, the UDEF dismantled the leadership of Manos Cleans and Ausbanc in the course of the investigations against Miguel Bernad and Luis Pineda, who were arrested for these alleged crimes. In September of the same year, Judge Santiago Pedraz cited to declare the lawyer López Negrete as accused, in her capacity as "legal director", for her "important, concerted and coordinated" actions within said extortion plot.

In December 2017, in its indictment, the Prosecutor's Office requested prison sentences for the eleven defendants in this case and the dissolution of the Collective of Civil Servants Manos Cleans union and the Spanish Civic Association Manos Cleans, as well as all the companies of the Ausbanc group, for the crimes of fraud, money laundering, extortion, threats, unfair administration, subsidy fraud and membership in a criminal organization. Specifically, he requested 24 years and 10 months in prison for Bernad, and 11 years and 11 months for López Negrete.

Ideology and criticism

Clean Hands is defined as an anti-corruption union ("we will file all types of complaints against political or economic corruption that harms the public or general interest") and contrary to separatist nationalisms ("we will always fight for the defense of the constitutional order of our country, against the separatist movements that seek to disintegrate it.") Takes the name of the Italian movement of the same name promoted by the Milan prosecutor Di Pietro, from which they claim to be inspired. His ideological affiliation has frequently been described as far-right, both by national and international media. He became known for appearing, as an interested party, in numerous lawsuits against decisions of the administrations governed by left-wing and peripheral nationalist parties.

Along these lines, in 2000, it shared its headquarters in Madrid with that of the Fuerza Nacional del Trabajo union. Its main leader, Miguel Bernad, was a far-right militant, responsible for the National Front organization and named Knight of Honor of the Francisco Franco National Foundation for his "services in defense of the ideals of the Movement." He has also justified the use of the violence carried out by the post-Franco Spanish extreme right, when the Fuerza Nueva militants were feared for their paramilitary organization and the numerous street altercations that they carried out armed with chains and shakos.

In March 2005, Clean Hands threatened to file a complaint against the state attorney general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, if he did not withdraw the ultra-right classification of this organization in his statements. Thus, Clean Hands rejected having an ultra-right character and stated that, «even if this were true, article 14 of the Constitution says that no one can be discriminated against because of their birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance." Finally Conde Pumpido retracted his statement, stating that he did not intend to insult but rather "with greater or lesser fortune, [...] to locate, in what he considered to be its exact political context, an initiative – in any case respectable – [...] in relation to a certain judicial process", and which took as reference a report from El Mundo in which Bernad claimed his affinity with Blas Piñar.

The association itself claims that it is neither extreme right nor left and that all people have the right to evolve ideologically. However, in February 2014 Miguel Bernad joined Soluciona, a new extreme right party led by the businessman Armando Robles, and later Manos Médicas has given its support to successive far-right alliances.