Revisión, trascendencia constitucional y memoria histórica

Resumen

La posibilidad de revisar y, en su caso, declarar la nulidad de las sentencias del franquismo ha sido y, continua siendo, una cuestión muy controvertida política, doctrinal y también jurisprudencialmente. Este trabajo analiza con ojos críticos el criterio mantenido recientemente por el Tribunal Supremo en esta materia al denegar la autorización para la interposición del recurso de revisión basándose en la supuesta carencia de objeto del recurso porque cuando la Ley de Memoria Histórica declara la injusticia e ilegitimidad de dichas condenas las priva de eficacia jurídica. Una respuesta que, como se explicará en las siguientes páginas, vulnera el derecho a la tutela judicial efectiva en dos de sus dimensiones concretas: el derecho de acceso al proceso y, el derecho a un resolución fundada en derecho; pero que afecta también indirectamente al derecho a la presunción de inocencia. Una forma gráfica de presentar esta crítica es exponiéndola a través de un caso concreto; el de una víctima paradigmática del franquismo, el poeta Miguel Hernández y su familia a quienes inexplicablemente ambos tribunales les hayan cerrado las puertas.

Appeal by review (revisión) against judgment, that has already gained res judicata, is an extraordinary remedy based upon reasons of Justice. When this appeal by review is used for the annulment of judgments of Franco dictatorship, this well known statement had been in the past, and has been nowadays, a very controversial issue politically, doctrinally and jurisprudentially. This critical paper analyses the Spanish Supreme Court’s opinion uphold in this matter to deny the previous authorisation, which is requiered for filing the petition of the appeal by review. The Supreme Court based its decision on a alleged lack of purpose for this review procedure because when the Historical Memory Law declares injustice and illegitimacy of those sentences, this Law deprives them also of their legal effect. This answer, as we explained in the following pages, violates the due process (as a fundamental right of effective judicial protection) in two of its specific dimensions: the right of access to the courts and judicial procedure and the right to a decision based in law, but also indirectly affects the presumption of innocence. In order to illustrate this review we decided to do it through a specific case, which involves a paradigmatic victim of Franco’s regime, the poet Miguel Hernández and his family to whom the Spanish Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court have closed inexplicably their doors for Justice.