Judges Letter on mockery of habeas corpus and justice 6 March 1958

translated by Jules Dubois, as published in:

Jules Dubois (1959): Fidel Castro: Rebel-Liberator Or Dictator? (Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill),
pp220-222

Note: As part of Castroʼs revolutionary campaign, the 26th of July Movement had been
endeavoring to enlist judges to make pronouncements from the bench against the
Batista regime. These efforts targeted judges who were anti-Batista and inclined to
judicial activism, such as Enrique Hart Ramirez, father of two sons actively involved in
Castro terrorist activities (Armando Hart Dávalos, then in jail for terrorism, and
Enrique Hart Dávalos, the M-26-7 Chief of Action & Sabotage in Matanzas–who died
a month later when a bomb he was making exploded). For more on these events and
their context refer to Manuel Márquez-Sterlingʼs http://Cuba1952-1959.blogspot.com

March 6, 1958
To: Chamber of Administration, Court of Appeals of Havana

The undersigned, officers of the judiciary, have the honor to

state respectfully as follows:

The administration of justice in Cuba has never been so mocked,

ridiculed and abused as it has been recently. Upon reviewing our
hazardous past history, we cannot find any record of two sons of a
judge having been killed by a soldier, or the homes of two
magistrates having been subjected to machine-gun fire, or the home
of another judge having been bombed, or of a magistrate acting as
an electoral inspector having been arrested by a member of the
armed forces, and his having been kept incommunicado and deprived
of food. Nor can we find any record of judicial procedure having
been prevented by national police patrol cars, or the traditional
institution of habeas corpus mocked and ignored after the criminal
division of the Supreme Court ordered prisoners to be freed,
prisoners who were later on found shot to death, or after the
Court of Appeals of this district had ordered that they be
presented before the court under the appeals procedure.

On the other hand, it is notorious that vices like gambling and

prostitution are exploited by those called upon to prosecute them
and that the list of deaths and murders among prisoners grows
daily, even including young people and women, without the authors
of such crimes being discovered, owing to the lack of police co-
operation.

There hardly remains any Court of Appeals where, for lack of

proper vigilance, a fire has not broken out or a bomb has not
exploded. A few steps from the Supreme Court building a man has
been found shot to death, and the police have neither been able to
prevent it nor to trace the assassins.

A judge, appointed as special prosecutor to investigate the facts,

Judges’ Letter (3/6/58) [translated by Jules Dubois] page 2

is publicly subjected to threats and insults with complete

impunity.

Finally, in the municipalities of Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo,

Palma Soriano, Bayamo, El Cobre, Manzanillo and Niquero, it is a
notorious fact that cases of violent death (by gunshot, torture
and hanging) are daily events, while the judges are prevented by
officers of the armed forces from doing their duty and are
deprived of the indispensable means to do it.

This state of affairs makes the judiciary of the Republic appear

as a weak and oppressed body in the eyes of the nation.

The Chamber of Administration of the Supreme Court, in a

resolution dated June 25, 1926, warned all judges that 'every
officer represents totally, within the limits of his respective
incumbency, the authority of the judiciary, with all of its
attributes and also with all of its responsibilities, and that
each of them, by virtue of his office, is charged with the defense
of the prestige of the courts.'

In similar circumstances, but not so grave as at present, the

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said that 'from the point of
view of national stability, it is indispensable to make an effort
to keep inviolate the administration of justice and to maintain
the strength and autonomy of the bodies which serve it, as a
consequence of which it is unlawful to suppress any effort which
may be conducive to the maintenance of the constitutional
condition of the courts and that when all the efforts to attain
that end have been exhausted, it is neither dignified nor edifying
for the judiciary to remain silent.'

In view whereof, and without trying to make any suggestions that

could be interpreted as insubordination, but in the firm belief
that the above mentioned resolution imposes upon us the obligation
to comply with it insofar as we are concerned, we hereby beg this
Chamber of Administration to pass such resolutions as it may deem
proper.

Havana, March 6, 1958.

(Signed) Alfredo E. Herrera Estrada and Fernando Alvarez Tabio,

Presidents of Divisions of the Court of Appeals of Havana; Jorge
A. Cowley, Fernandez Saavedra, Pedro Lucas Lozano Urquiola, Manuel
Gomez Calvo, Juan Bautista More Benitez, Miguel F. Marquez de la
Cerra, Eloy G. Merino Brito, Enrique Hart Ramirez, Jose Montoro
Cespedes, Magistrates of the Court of Appeals of Havana; Felipe L.
Luaces Sebrango, Juan F. Rodriguez Soriano, Judges of Havana.