Spanish justice

Francis Roberts (Letters, 23 April) is right to raise a question about laws recently concocted by Spain to criminalise the likes of Professor Ponsati.

Christian teaching differentiates between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. In a democratic country the law exists to protect rather than persecute its citizens.

Spain, since Franco, has not been a truly democratic country: a state that incites violence against its own people for political reasons does not deserve to be called a democracy. This is the country that in the past devised laws to expel its Jewish citizenry and implement an Inquisition. How valid were these laws?

Apologists for Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy invoke the rule of law to justify his actions. But what if the law is unjust, a political expedient designed to suppress all opposition? Many collaborationists who upheld the law in Vichy France by denouncing Resistance fighters paid a heavy price after the Liberation.

Shamefully, the silence of the Pope in that era is now echoed by the silence of the EU.

JAMES STEVENSON Drummond Av, Auchterarder