José Ramón Prado Bugallo, also known as Sito Miñanco, a historic Galician drug trafficker, has taken his case to the Supreme Court to claim his right to enjoy the visits that were granted to him as a prize in prison for doing extraordinary work, but were suspended due to the covid-19 pandemic. The Penal Chamber rejected his request because the prison argued that there were not enough rooms to recover the lost in-person contacts during the pandemic and there was no legal basis or doctrine to support the inmate. However, the judges suggested that he submit a new request in which he claims that this prize should be replaced by another.
Miñanco is in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering and in recent years has been in several prisons, including Zuera (Zaragoza), Estremera (Madrid), and Dueñas (Palencia), where he is currently located. While in the Zaragoza prison, he accumulated several rewards under the Penitentiary Regulations for acts that demonstrate good conduct, work ethic, and responsibility in the behavior of inmates, which can be exchanged for various benefits. Miñanco chose to accumulate private communications with direct contact, known as vis a vis, but these were suspended due to covid-19 in March 2020. When he was transferred to Estremera in December of that year, some of these visits were allowed to resume, but in this prison, he earned more rewards and when he was transferred to Palencia prison in April 2022, the prison denied him the opportunity to enjoy the rewards he had pending.
A Penitentiary Surveillance Court and the Provincial Court of Palencia upheld the prison’s decision, and Miñanco took the case to the Supreme Court, which dismissed his appeal and refused to force the prison to provide him with the visits he had earned because the decision was not specific to him but affected all inmates and was based on organizational reasons. The court explained that the resolutions of a surveillance court are not valid as jurisprudence for the Supreme Court. However, the judges suggested that Miñanco may be able to obtain different rewards instead of the vis a vis he had earned. The court considered it logical that the right of an inmate to a regular visit should not be equated to the extraordinary visits granted as a reward for work done.
The court invited Miñanco to submit a new request for other rewards allowed under the Penitentiary Regulations, such as priority in participating in scheduled outings for cultural activities, reductions in imposed sanctions, study scholarships, book donations, cash prizes, and meritorious notes. The court suggested that the rewards he had earned could be replaced by a different type of reward if they could not be enjoyed at another time. It concluded that while regular visits that were suspended due to the pandemic may be lost, rewards obtained as a result of exceptional work should not necessarily be lost and could be replaced by other rewards of a different nature. Miñanco now has the opportunity to present a new request to be granted any of these rewards.
