Female judges in Spain: power that doesn't erase insecurity
Women judges in Spain hold power and face risk: the Cillán case and the footballer anecdote show the robe is no shield. What would protect them?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The robe is no bulletproof vest for female judges
Being a judge is one of the few professions where power is worn as a robe. For a woman, the robe is also sold as armor: authority, independence, respect. The uncomfortable question is whether that armor holds up against contact with Spanish reality.
Some see the female judge as the paradigm of the empowered woman: young, well-trained, able to keep any attempt at condescension at arm's length. But that same image of untouchable power crashes against harsh facts: the anecdote circulates of a footballer and his companions who nearly beat a judge to a pulp, and it is cited as a warning. The robe doesn't stop fists either.
The price of handing down rulings
The names of Judge Alaya and Coro Cillán close the circle. In Cillán's case, her expulsion from the judiciary and admission to a psychosocial center have been read by many as proof that the system does not protect its own. Alaya, for her part, remains an uncomfortable reference point for a justice system that investigates but is also investigated.
In between, the technological irony: anyone hoping that artificial intelligence will hand down rulings gets the answer that this will never happen, because AI cannot be bribed. What is said between the lines is that corruption, like antiestéticar, remains a human affair.
If the robe is no armor, what is? The answer remains open, like almost everything in the Spanish justice system.
Being a judge is one of the few professions where power is worn as a robe. For a woman, the robe is also sold as armor: authority, independence, respect. The uncomfortable question is whether that armor holds up against contact with Spanish reality.
Some see the female judge as the paradigm of the empowered woman: young, well-trained, able to keep any attempt at condescension at arm's length. But that same image of untouchable power crashes against harsh facts: the anecdote circulates of a footballer and his companions who nearly beat a judge to a pulp, and it is cited as a warning. The robe doesn't stop fists either.
The price of handing down rulings
The names of Judge Alaya and Coro Cillán close the circle. In Cillán's case, her expulsion from the judiciary and admission to a psychosocial center have been read by many as proof that the system does not protect its own. Alaya, for her part, remains an uncomfortable reference point for a justice system that investigates but is also investigated.
In between, the technological irony: anyone hoping that artificial intelligence will hand down rulings gets the answer that this will never happen, because AI cannot be bribed. What is said between the lines is that corruption, like antiestéticar, remains a human affair.
If the robe is no armor, what is? The answer remains open, like almost everything in the Spanish justice system.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (19 replies).
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