As a result of the “workplace harassment” he faced for three years and five months after reporting some coworkers for “irregularities regarding the lack of control of the cash collected from fines” and “selective” inspections in leisure venues, the Constitutional Court agreed to protect the officer from Torrevieja.
The First Chamber made the decision unanimously; judge María Luisa Segoviano was in charge of writing it. They thought that the agent’s right to physical and moral integrity had been violated in relation to their right to effective legal protection.
The six judges in the First Chamber have decided that both the Torrevieja City Council and the High Court of Justice (TSJ) of the Valencian Community are “attributable” for violating these rights. This was stated in a note released by the Court of Guarantees yesterday.
For the local council, it was because it “failed to stop, investigate, and punish the harassment of its public employees and the institutionalised harassment it carried out against the plaintiff.” And, in terms of the Valencian TSJ, for “failure to comply with its duty of judicial control of these rights, by not correctly applying the constitutional jurisprudence on the shifting of the burden of proof in their protection.”
The judge made their decision based on the facts that the agent had previously filed a criminal complaint against some members of the Local Police. After that, the complainant was subjected to a “series of sustained and repeated acts of harassment” by coworkers or superiors.
Based on the facts that were proven, the city council also knew about “situations of harassment occurring in the Local Police” that were “judicialized” and the “impact” that these behaviours had on the physical and mental health of the arrested person.
It told the City Council it had to pay 95,816 euros in damages plus interest for being late since 2016 because it didn’t do any investigations and kept bothering the officer.
Author: Derek Appleton
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