Judge José Antonio Vázquez Taín, investigator in cases such as the crime of the Asunta girl or the theft of the Calixtino Code, has become the most media-oriented judge in Galicia in recent years, not only because of his attraction to cases that monopolized mainstream attention , but also for his varied profile as a novelist, documentary filmmaker and regular radio and television commentator. This hyperactivity can now get him into trouble: the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has opened a file on him for very serious or serious misconduct and for carrying out activities incompatible with his position as a judge. Council sources indicate that these activities would be related to audiovisual companies, in particular its stake in a production company whose incompatibility with the exercise of justice had already been warned by the governing body.
The opening of the file indicates that the CGPJ plans to sanction the judge and head of the Criminal Court 2 of A Coruña. The penalty for a serious offense is a fine of between €501 and €6,000, but very serious violations can result in suspension, compulsory transfer or dismissal from justice. The decision to open a file on him comes after the CGPJ Disciplinary Prosecutor verified that Vázquez Taín was engaged in other activities outside the judiciary without obtaining permission from the Chief Judicial Board. Sources from this body point to the establishment of a film production, exhibition and marketing company with which the judge is said to be connected. These sources explain that he founded the production company and then applied to the council for mandatory approval, which CGPJ refused. Despite this, he continued his relationship with the company.
The Galician judge has presented two audiovisual works in recent years. The first of them, Pilgrims, is a 2022 documentary about women on the Camino de Santiago, which the judge touted as his first audiovisual experience. Produced by the company Mundo Redondo Producciones, the work was sponsored by the Xunta de Galicia and Xacobeo 21-22. Last March he presented El camino mozárabe: sangre, sudor y fe, a documentary on the history of the Vía de la Plata, produced by the company Amarola Producciones, of which his wife, the lawyer Beatriz Seijo Méndez, is the sole administrator. The company was founded in April 2022 and its corporate purpose is the “production, exhibition, distribution and marketing of film productions or products of all kinds in the most diverse areas”.
The organic law of the judiciary allows judges and magistrates to make their work compatible with teaching and legal research, in addition to literary, artistic and technical production and creation, but prohibits “direct, administrative or economic participation in companies or undertakings of a commercial, public or commercial”. private, of any kind”. For this reason, although Vázquez Taín’s versatile character as a novelist, commentator and even documentary filmmaker is well known, sources from the presiding judges’ panel point out that the incompatibility being investigated against him does not relate to his artistic creation, but to his alleged Incompatibility is due to an interest in a company in which, according to these sources, he owns 50%.
Audiovisual production was the last vocation of Judge Taín, born in 1968 in A Merca (Ourense), a media judge loved by some and hated by others. His first assignment brought him notoriety in 1999: at the agitated Investigative Court 1 of Vilagarcía de Arousa (Pontevedra), where he earned nicknames such as the Galician Garzón or the Robin Hood of Vilagarcía for his ability to work and his determination in the fight against drug trafficking. It was also there that he learned to gain the sympathy and respect of the members of the state security forces with whom he worked, and at that time especially the customs officials. In 2003, a well-known Taín in the press, already famous in Galicia, ordered the arrest of smuggler Marcial Dorado, who was accused of drug trafficking.
In 2005 the judge was transferred to Mataró (Barcelona), but he wanted to return to Galicia and it wasn’t long before he did so. The Xunta del PP appointed him director of the Center for Judicial Studies and Public Security in the final stages of Manuel Fraga’s government, a position that had not existed until then. But just a few months after the regional elections, the PSOE-BNG bipartisan government came into being and Vázquez Taín was sacked. He had to return to Mataró, where he stayed for a year and a half. His heyday as a judge was at his next target, the Santiago Instructional Court 2, where the most famous cases of the time ended: the theft of the Calixtino Code (2011-12) and the death of the girl Asunta Basterra (2013-14).
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In keeping with the purpose of this guide, first Galicia and then all of Spain discovered his writing streak. Criticism rained down on him when he published The Legend of the Hidden Saint in Compostela’s Teófilo publishing house, in which it was not difficult to find parallels to the shady events in Santiago Cathedral. And many were already wondering where the red line was for Taín when, after the Asunta case, he signed with Espasa to write three novels and presented Al infierno se llega aprisa. The work is about the disappearance of a girl, but drug dealers and assassins also appear in it. The protagonist is inspired by his current wife, just as he is the main character in his first novel. In both works, he acknowledged that he also relied on real people, such as Civil Guard and Police investigators, to construct the characters that populate the pages, and that quite a few characters appear by their real names. According to those books, Taín applied to be transferred to Criminal Court 2 of A Coruña, the city where he resides.
In 2012, his fame took its toll. A Taín-obsessed ex-con was waiting at the school bus stop, ready to throw a corrosive liquid at the judge’s son. The perpetrator failed, but harmed three other children and two women, and ended up in prison again.
Upon his transfer to the criminal court of A Coruña, Taín sought the calm he could not find in the investigative courts to pursue his role as a writer. Since then he has published five more books with Espasa: Killing is not easy, The Bottomless Sea, Great Trials in History, Pulse to the State, Beyond and Above. At the same time, his interventions multiplied as commentator, commentator and collaborator on radio and television programs such as Ana Rosas (Telecinco) and A Tarde (TVG).
It is not the first time that the CGPJ is considering sanctioning Justice Taín. Back in 2014, a file was opened for the personal resolution of the lawsuit filed against him by José Manuel Fernández Castiñeiras, the main defendant in the theft of the Calixtino Codex in the Cathedral of Santiago in 2011, the suspension of the judge for very serious misconduct, but the CGPJ Disciplinary Committee considered that while Taín did not follow the established procedure for denials (referral to a higher court for clarification), the facts did not constitute an offence.