The Ministry of Justice has imposed a two year ban from office and subsequent loss of pay for Juana Gálvez Muñoz, the Judicial Secretary of the Penal Court in Sevilla, for his part in the failure to execute a sentence which would have meant that the alleged killer of Mari Luz Cortés would have been safely behind bars.
Mari Luz Cortés, aged five years, died last January, allegedly at the hands of known paedophile Santiago del Valle.
Del Valle had already been convicted and sentenced to a prison term for the sexual abuse of his own daughter and should have been in jail at the time young Mari Luz Cortés disappeared in Huelva. However, the judicial authorities failed to issue the necessary directives and he remained at large.
The judge in the case, Rafael Tirado, was earlier fined €1,500 by the CGPJ, the General Council of the Judiciary, a decision which caused much outrage amongst the general public and with the parents of the murdered girl. The Ministry of Justice has taken a stronger line, although there are those who feel that Juana Gálvez Muñoz is being made a ‘scapegoat’ to appease the public.