The fourth lecture in the Spanish lecture series was given by Dr Baugniet about three activist prosecutors of the Hispanophone world: Balthazar Garzón, Alberto Nisman and Luis Moreno Ocampo. Clearly drawing from his interest and expertise in law, Dr Bagniuet began with an engaging summary of each of the jurists’ legal careers. Garzón served on the National Court in Spain and took many cases involving terrorism (such as the prosecution of many alleged ETA members), corruption and bribery. He is most controversial for his 1998 attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from the United Kingdom on charges of crimes against humanity, as well as for attempting an inquiry into Francoist atrocities, depute the 1977 amnesty. Alberto Nisman was in charge of an investigation into the worst terrorist attack in Argentine history (the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre) and was shot dead under mysterious circumstances. As he was killed just hours before he was about to explain his final allegations to the Argentine congress, and as those allegations involved several senior figures in the government, there are strong suspicions of political motivations for his murder. Luis Moreno Ocampo is famous for being the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Despite investigations into several individuals in government suspected of human rights abuses around the world, the ICC is generally recognised to be impotent or inefficient, or both. Because of this, Moreno Ocampo has come under some criticism.
Dr Baginuet managed to take the common threads in each jurists' career and used the examples to illustrate the tensions between politics and the judiciary. He also warned of the dangers of hubris or over ambitious prosecution and discussed the role of the superhero-jurist in modern society. He made a potentially dry topic into a very engaging and interesting talk, which gave us some insight into an important part of civil society in the Hispanophone world.