A Guardia Civil officer has filed a claim with the Administration for compensation exceeding 137,000 euros. This claim follows nearly eight years spent embroiled in a criminal process that was eventually archived. According to the officer's complaint, the ordeal led to a professional «exile» to Gipuzkoa and later to Navarra, halting his career and causing significant personal harm.
The situation began in 2014 when a company manager filed a complaint in Andalusia with the Guardia Civil regarding an alleged bribery offense. The initial account suggested an officer had offered to act as an intermediary with another Guardia Civil officer, who had imposed a sanction on the company, to nullify the fine in exchange for 1,000 euros. However, subsequent investigation dismantled this version, as it could not be concluded «with a minimum of certainty» that such an agreement existed, leaving the facts as mere hypotheses.
Despite the case's low complexity, the investigation dragged on until 2022. This excessive delay prompted one of the involved officers to seek compensation for the consequences of the prolonged process. The dismissal order itself acknowledged that the case «could have been decreed within a few months» but was extended due to «gross errors by the court» and «neglect». In total, the procedure accumulated eight periods of undue delays, totaling 2,451 days—over six and a half years—within a case that spanned almost eight years.
In his judicial claim before the Audiencia Nacional, the officer stated that the consequences were not only legal but also undermined his professional trajectory and personal life. As a direct result of the criminal case, a disciplinary file was opened, leading to his suspension from duties and dismissal from his post in September 2014, when he was forced to surrender his equipment «with complete shame and dishonor».
From that point, what he describes as an «exile» began. He was assigned to a post in Gipuzkoa, far from his family, and later to Navarra, where he spent years separated from his children. In addition to the financial costs of maintaining family contact and fulfilling judicial obligations, the officer reported that the criminal proceedings significantly impacted his professional career, depriving him of promotion opportunities and preventing him from receiving proposed commendations. He asserts this damage is «irreparable» because, at the time the case was dismissed, he was nearing the age limit for promotion, effectively closing that path.
For all these reasons, the Guardia Civil officer requested a total compensation of 128,342.16 euros, exceeding 137,000 euros with interest, covering undue delays, lost promotion opportunities, living expenses and travel during his prolonged relocation, moral damages, and loss of commendations.
However, in a recent ruling, the Audiencia Nacional dismissed the officer's financial claim. The court concluded that, despite the criminal procedure's prolonged duration, the necessary conditions to declare the Administration of Justice's responsibility were not met. The judicial resolution states that it has not been sufficiently proven that the delays were exclusively due to abnormal functioning of the judicial body, nor that there is a direct and quantifiable relationship between these delays and all the economic damages claimed. The ruling also emphasizes that some alleged consequences, such as the opening of a disciplinary file, suspension from duties, or changes of assignment, automatically arise from an ongoing criminal process within the Guardia Civil and cannot be directly attributed to judicial malfunction. In this regard, the Court understands that compensation for damages like lost professional opportunities or career impact is not warranted due to a lack of sufficiently proven causal link, although it recognized the appellant's right to receive 19,000 euros in compensation for procedural delays by partially upholding the officer's appeal.
