Legal proceedings against police actions: evidence versus narrative

In 2005, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a set of principles to protect human rights by combating impunity, to be understood as a breach of the State's obligations to investigate violations and adopt measures against their perpetrators.

Taking this framework of international law as its reference point, the Basque Country has put in place Act 12/2016, of 28 July 2016, on the recognition and reparation of victims of human rights violations within the context of politically motivated violence.

This legislation set up the Appraisal Commission which has, in its five published reports, confirmed 238 victims (over the time period 1978-1999). In one of the reports (2024), it specifies that 9 victims were struck by bullets fired by members of State Law Enforcement Agencies or quasi-police groups, with 6 of them being killed. Such cases include that of Lucía Urigoitia, who died in 1987 having been shot at close range in a presumed clash with the Civil Guard.

The three fundamental aspects of the fight against impunity are truth, justice and reparation. Regarding the right to truth, in its individual dimension, the UN Human Rights Council has emphasised the need to recognise the right enjoyed by victims of manifest human rights violations, as well as their families, to know the identity of the perpetrators, the causes and circumstances.

However, the right to truth also has a collective dimension (collective memory), which can only be built through consensus as to the obligation to combat impunity.