THE FATHER OF A YOUNG GIRL murdered in Huelva is seeking a new political party after a much-publicised split with the socialist PSOE.
Mari Luz Cortés was found dead in January, 2008. It was later discovered her alleged murderer, Santiago del Valle García, had been found guilty of paedophile crimes in 2002 but had been avoiding prison by hiding with relatives. Since then, Mari Luz’s father, Juan José Cortés, has been campaigning for justice reforms such as the inclusion of life imprisonment in the Spanish constitution and tougher sentences for paedophile crimes.
Sr Cortés yesterday said he felt himself to be ideologically “close” to the conservative, Partido Popular (PP), due to their stand on tougher sentences and other issues. Sr Cortés, who is an evangelical preacher, headed a protest march in Madrid last Saturday against the new abortion laws.
Sr Cortés’ comments come after he turned in his membership card of the PSOE socialist party last week. Sr Cortés said he felt “disappointed” with his former party. He said: “I would have hoped for more support from the PSOE.”
 

The temptation of collective suicide appears to be high in the imagination of the overworked judges and clerks of Málaga’s Mercantile Courts.
It seems that the high case load is causing Judges to openly speak of the breakdown in the Justice system.
“Absolutely paralyzed by the volume and overload of cases resulting from bankruptcy proceedings arising from the current economic climate” is how one Judge recently described the state of the courts.
Judges have recently urged parties in bankruptcy to reach agreements outside the judicial process to avoid unnecessary expense and delay.
And in a recent order signed by Mercantil Judge of Court nº 1 of Málaga, Antonio Fuentes Bujalance, in relation to the bankruptcy proceedings of Aifos Architecture and Real Estate SA, the magistrate expressly encourages buyers who have not started or completed their projects property not to go to court to settle their purchase contracts.
"They should go to court, but the volume of cases that could be generated by such proceedings, added to those already pending, can cause, or rather increase, the temptations of the collective suicide of the court staff who have to deal with the cases" wrote the Judge in his order dated February 11 and shown to the Málaga branch of national newspaper El Mundo.
The judge invited the parties involved to "devise imaginative solutions" to avoid the consequences of such a flood of claims in court, and suggested extrajudicial arbitration to solve most of the cases.
The liquidators of Aifos should resolve outstanding contracts via arbitration, "avoiding delays, expense and absurd delays“.

The Judge points out that if both parties accept the arbitration decision, then it need only be ratified by a Judge to become binding, and “would be a much faster solution to the problem”.
The European Court of Human Rights  (ECHR) recently criticised Spain for its "slow" justice system.
The case was presented by Martín Vicente Llavador, a Spanish citizen from Alicante, after his case was accepted in 1999 only to be thrown out four years later for insufficient evidence.
The ECHR found Spain to be in breech of article 6.1 of the European Agreement on Human Rights, which states that all EU citizens have the right to "speedy equitable and effective justice".
And court staff across Spain staged protests last year, demanding greater resources from the central government to deal with increased workload.
Judges have complained that the Justice system is being “starved of money” by the government, and say that in some regions resources allocated to courts should be doubled in order to help deal with the backlog of cases.