a prisoner in jail Tenerife II has addressed the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court (TS) arguing that he could not present an appeal in this judicial area because his lawyer suffered from influenza A, since he is deprived of liberty.
The TS, however, resolves that the appeal announced at the time by the attorney for having been filed after the deadline is not admitted, which was notified to the fiscal Ministery and to the other parties, so that the defendant only had to file a complaint, as he did, although it was later dismissed.
The attorney transferred to the TS that her client was in prison for other reasons, to which she added that her lawyer He was off work due to suffering from influenza A.
“His permanence in Tenerife II, even though it does not constitute an obstacle to communication between lawyer and client, does make it more complicated and, in our case, it was impossible to do it in a timely manner for the reasons that we have already explained.“, indicates the attorney. Despite this, the appeal was immediately rejected for having been filed after the deadline.
The convicted person alleged that his lawyer’s illness prevented him from being notified of the judicial decision since the Court did not do so either, so he could not meet the terms that were too limited.
All this because his lawyer was unable to work for five days, so he could not be notified. The communication reached the prosecutor, not the convicted person, so it was not possible to contact the lawyer to decide if it was appropriate to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The prisoner explains that the appeal was filed after the deadline due to his lawyer’s illness, so he could not be informed of the content of the sentence and the deadlines for appealing were not met.
The Supreme Court responds that the inactivity of the defendants does not imply an injury to their right of defense or effective judicial protection and that it is also a sentence handed down on appeal that does not require personal notification.
Consequently, the Supreme Court has proven that the submission of the brief “was untimely and correctly denied” and rejects the allegation due to a temporarily disabling illness that was not brought to the attention of the Court, nor was it subsequently justified.
It is also not accepted that since the appellant was in prison, he could not communicate with the lawyer, since otherwise, the Supreme believes that in the end “the terms stipulated for these procedures would end up depending on the pure and simple will of the parties.”
