For your military justice bookshelf

Col. Nicolás Marchal Escalona

Confilegal has this informative interview with Col. Nicolás Marchal Escalona, whose new book (co-authored by Óscar Manuel Díez Herrero), Disciplinary Regime of the Civil Guard: Jurisprudence of the Fifth Chamber of the Supreme Court, has just come out. Contrary to the news report, the download is not free; it will run you €5.00. Excerpt (tweaked Google Translate version):

The latest declarations of the Civil Guard Associations have been claiming that the Military Penal Code does not apply to the Civil Guard. What is your opinion?

It is a provision of our regulations, derived from the legal nature of the Corps, regarding which there is no room for personal opinions. However, objectively considered and as I said before, only Title I is applicable in any case (of the discipline), reserving the application of the rest to NOT being acts of the service performed in the exercise of functions of a police nature.

The legal nature of the Civil Guard is military. One need only look at our close surroundings, in which police officers from many countries have adopted the gendármic model (civilian and other military police forces): France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands.

It is a system that has proven its effectiveness over the years. In Spain there are two police officers, at the national level, who support each other and, at the same time, constitute a healthy competitive stimulus for each other.

And it is necessary to add that, in time of war and a state of siege, the Civil Guard would be fully integrated into the Ministry of Defense, constituting a "fourth" army.