The charges related to Garzón’s investigation into human rights abuses under former Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco are probably the most talked about of the three concurrent charges.
General Franco ruled Spain under a fascist regime for nearly 40 years, and during that time hundreds of thousands of people were killed, forced into exile, or sent to concentration camps. Two years after his death and the end of his regime, the Spanish parliament passed an amnesty law making it “illegal to revisit political crimes from that era,” reports NPR.
However, in 2008, Garzón ordered mass graves exhumed, and named Franco as one of 34 suspects in the deaths of 114,000 opponents of the Franco regime, reports the Guardian. He is charged with abusing his power as a judge after ordering a formal court investigation into Franco-era crimes in disregard of the amnesty law.
Garzón testified that he decided to investigate because he believes the crimes of Franco’s rule are “permanent crimes” that continue to affect the descendants of victims today, reports CNN.
He said he began to see evidence that there was a "systematic plan" against Franco's opponents, which he said included forced disappearances, illegal detentions and assassinations.
The charges were brought against him by a reportedly conservative civil servants union called Clean Hands.
In 2007, the Socialist Party passed a “historical memory” law recognizing the victims of Spain’s civil war, but digging into the events remains largely taboo.
