Madrid, October 8 – A decision by Spain’s Constitutional Court to allow Spanish jurisdiction on genocide and crimes against humanity committed outside the country, whatever the victims’ nationality, could see an appeal against Chinese alleged repression in Tibet succeed, an NGO said here.
“Our lawyers will go to court next Thursday and wave this ruling. It’s extremely important, and not just for Tibet,” said Alan Cantos on behalf of the Committee for Support of Tibet (Cat).
A June lawsuit filed at Madrid’s high court against former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and former prime minister Li Peng along with five other Chinese officials for alleged genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism against the Tibetan people was thrown out.
However, Wednesday’s ruling in response to an appeal by Guatemalan Nobel Peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu to allow the exercise of international penal law by national jurisdictions has encouraged the Cat to appeal and the case will be heard at the high court on Thursday.
The Supreme Court had rejected a submission by 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, saying that Spain’s judiciary could only deal with crimes committed against Spanish citizens, but the Constitutional Court overturned the first ruling.
“The Supreme Court rejected the case first time out using exactly the arguments of the Guatemala case — something they knew was under revision,” said Cantos.
But Cantos said Tibetan campaigners were not counting their chickens ahead of the appeal hearing.
“This is such a difficult case we have learned to be optimistic and realistic in equal measure.”
Cantos concluded that the Constitutional Court ruling should encourage governments to see that such laws were “to be applied as they are written, not on the basis of their compatibility with governments” and that victim nationality was irrelevant.
Spain’s ABC newspaper reported Friday that the Constitutional Court ruling was likely to see cases reopened in Spain on alleged rights abuses in Rwanda, Argentina, Guataemala and Chile.
