Judge Carmen Robles Zamora, who during July 2023 served as a substitute judge in the Criminal Court Number 1 of Ibiza, has been removed from the pool of substitute judges of the Balearic Islands after several irregularities in her performance became known, including the unjust sentencing of a man to 7 and a half years in prison and the payment of a compensation of 17,739.50 euros, in a case of gender violence initiated in 2019.
The case became public last week when it became known that the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands had revoked, in October 2024, the sentence issued by a substitute judge. “Rarely have we seen a procedure with so many legal infractions,” concluded the Audiencia, in a sentence by magistrate Javier Burgos Neira. The name of the judge in question was not mentioned in the document. La Voz de Ibiza has been able to corroborate her identity through sources at the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB), who in turn specified that Robles Zamora “is no longer part of the pool of substitute judges in the Balearic Islands.”“The Governing Chamber of the High Court took the appropriate measures after being aware of several incidents, and by a negative report of the presidency of the TSJIB, currently no longer part of the bag,” they reported.
In addition, they confirmed that among the incidents that led to her sanction is the conviction plagued with legal errors that was later overturned by the Provincial Court. However, no details have been provided about the other misdemeanors or if any other type of sanctions have been adopted in addition to being removed from the pool of interim judges with which to cover the leave of incumbent judges.
A history of substitutions in the Ibiza courts
Carmen Robles Zamora served as a substitute in the Criminal Court Number 1 of Ibiza for three months, from May 29 to August 29, 2023. Her appointment was ratified by the Governing Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands, after being included in the pool of substitute judges for the judicial year 2022-2023, according to the Official State Gazette. This period coincides with the controversial conviction that was subsequently overturned by the Provincial Court. Prior to this controversial episode, Robles Zamora had already served as a substitute judge in Ibiza for years. In November 2021, she assumed a substitution in the Court of First Instance Number 1 of the island. This appointment also lasted for three months. She also performed another substitution in 2018, when she was appointed to cover a vacancy in the Juzgado de Instrucción Número 4 de Eivissa between August 9 and November 9 of that year.
A gross list of errors
Days ago, La Voz de Ibiza contacted the defender of the wrongfully convicted man, lawyer Victor Ballbé Sanféliz, who gave a detailed account of the list of legal errors committed by Robles Zamora. According to the lawyer, the defendant (referred to as Borja) was never notified of the initiation of the proceedings nor was he assigned a public defender from the Balearic Islands, as he should have been. For more than three years, until the end of 2022, the investigation phase passed without the accused having legal representation, which seriously violated his right to defense. The complainant’s statement was also the subject of controversy. According to the lawyer, it was made by videoconference from her lawyer’s office, which allowed direct interaction between the two during the statement, undermining the guarantees of the process. In addition, the judge unilaterally excluded a key witness proposed by the defense, depriving the defendant of evidence that could have been crucial to corroborate his version of events. In her ruling, the judge included serious technical and legal errors. Not only did she conform to the maximum penalties requested by the prosecution, but she also cited 20 pages of Chilean law to justify the conviction, a fact that the defense attorney described as “the most grotesque and exotic offense” he had ever witnessed. In addition, the sentence lacked adequate legal reasoning, going directly from the evaluation of the evidence to the conviction, which constitutes, according to the Provincial Court, “an absolute violation of the right to the presumption of innocence”. The Provincial Court of Palma overturned the sentence in October 2024, describing the proceedings as a case with “multiple legal violations”. Although the court ordered the case back to 2020 to ensure a fair trial, the defense lawyer considers that this decision was insufficient and that the appropriate course of action would have been the direct acquittal of the defendant. The case not only highlights the actions of the substitute judge, but also the structural deficiencies of the judicial office in charge of the investigation.
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