Stalin Show Trial for Pope’s Butler Likely – Medieval Justice

Crows vs. Doves - Vatileaks

(The Italian Press has labeled the Leakers in the Vatileaks Scandal as Crows. To others who seek justice and transparency, the leakers are labeled as Doves.)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/31/us-vatican-butler-lawyer-idUSBRE84U0QN20120531

(Reuters) - The Vatican's justice system harks back to medieval times and is unlikely to provide the pope's butler with fair treatment after his arrest for leaking confidential documents, according to a French lawyer involved in a previous case in the Holy See. Luc Brossollet is not involved in the so-called "Vatileaks" case shaking the papacy but he said his personal experience suggested the Vatican's judiciary is under the thumb of the Holy See and allows scant regard for the rights of defendants.

Brossollet was lawyer for the mother of Cedric Tornay, a young soldier in the Swiss Guard, the Pope's personal protection unit, who was found dead in May 1998 in a Vatican apartment alongside the bodies of the corp's commander and his wife.

"The Vatican does not have a modern, democratic judicial system that guarantees the defendant's rights. We are back to the Middle Ages. Even the Inquisition had some rules, but they don't have any. They just do as they wish," Brossollet told Reuters by telephone from Paris.

"The Vatican promotes the respect of human rights anywhere in the world, but it does not adhere to the same principles in its own courtyard," he said. "I think that poor butler is being detained arbitrarily."…

"I doubt that the butler's defense lawyer will ever have access to the full documents in the case," Brossollet said, adding that Tornay's mother still had not been able to obtain access to her son's judicial files after 14 years.

Brossollet said that throughout the Swiss Guard case, he and his co-defender Jacques Verges - whose clients have included a Nazi war criminal and a Khmer Rouge leader - were refused permission to argue their case before Vatican officials.

Only a handful of lawyers are allowed to work in the Vatican, and those who are not on that list must win special approval to do so.

"There is no independence, no separation of powers, and the judiciary will never go against the wishes of the Holy See. It's the archaic, unaccountable system of a sovereign prince," Brossollet said.