The civil servant She opened the cell where the prisoner was, slipped inside and came out barefoot after half an hour. with shoes in her hand and adjusting her uniform. This happened three years ago in the Pereiro de Aguiar prison, in Orense, and now the High Court of Xustiza de Galicia (TSXG) has confirmed the sanction imposed on this official by rejecting her appeal. You can still appeal to the Supreme Court.
The worker had been a career civil servant in the deputy corps of penitentiary institutions since 2008. AND Since 2017 he has been working at the Orensano penitentiary center, on secondment. She had a place in the Lanzarote prison, but she moved to the Galician city after a court convicted her ex-partner, the father of her daughter, of gender-based violence. The woman had met her ex-partner, precisely, in the Lanzarote penitentiary: he was serving a sentence in that prison, and she was a civil servant in the same penitentiary.
But what happened in August 2021 in the Pereiro de Aguiar prison in Orense concerned another prisoner. This prison officer had an intimate relationship with the inmate, who remained in her custody. On the night of August 7-8, she was the only officer on duty in module 2 of the prison. He accesses the second floor of said apartment, He opened the cell where the prisoner was and stayed there for half an hour. As has been said, she went out barefoot, with her shoes in her hand and adjusting her uniform, as the cameras recorded. There was no reason to justify it and, of course, he did not have the authorization of the head of department, according to the resolution of the Superior Court.
All this was described in late August 2021 in a report by the director of the Orense penitentiary center. The official was then provisionally suspended from her duties and, in June of the following year, the Ministry of the Interior suspended her, now firmly, for three months for what was considered a serious lack of discipline. And the case ended up reaching the table of the Contentious Chamber of the Autonomous High Court.
In its appeal, the civil servant’s defence argued that the sanction imposed on its client violated his fundamental rights and procedural guarantees. In its brief, it alleged, among other things, that it could not be proven that the woman had committed a disciplinary offence, since “The mere observation of their entry into the cell does not necessarily imply that there were relations within the prisoner.”
Caught by the cameras
But these arguments did not convince the TSXG. First, both the prisoner and the officer herself admitted that the woman had entered the cell and stayed there for half an hour. And above all, the video surveillance camera in the module proves it.
A report from the General Sub-delegation for Penitentiary Analysis and Inspection states that the recordings show how the officer left her cabin at 00:30, climbed the stairs to the second floor and entered the gallery on the right, where the cells of 40 to 47 are located, and left after half an hour with her shoes in her hand. “Stop putting on your shoes and shirt for a moment, then continue down.” continues describing the same report. Then, at 6:20, the woman went back up, “she stands in the same gallery and, lighting the door of a cell, remains there for a minute. Return to the cabin at 6:40.
This is sufficient for the TSXG to find that the official has committed serious misconduct by violating the disciplinary regime. In its resolution, reminds the defense that “the sanction is based” on the fact that the woman “left her post without authorization” and infiltrated the cell without authorization no justification. And no – even if the order does not say so explicitly – if the official had relations with the detainee.
In summary, the court considers that The woman’s allegations are only “generic” and confirms that at all times their rights have been respected: “There is no violation of their presumption of innocence or of the formal guarantees” of the process. Nor does the TSXG believe that the prison director violated the Data Protection Act or that he has “animosity” towards the official for including in his report the reason why he worked in Pereiro de Aguiar, despite having a location in Tenerife: it was an “internal communication” to an official body, “the court concludes.
