The jury has recognized his intense work in defense of the rights of prisoners and his efforts in the reform of prison laws.
The Foundation for Justice and the Bancaja Foundation have awarded the professor at the Faculty of Law (ICADE) and criminal lawyer Julián Carlos Ríos Martín, for his intense work defending the rights of prisoners and his efforts in reforming the laws penitentiaries and prisons, as a response to provide justice to crime. The Foundation for Justice-Bancaja Foundation Award, of which the thirteenth edition has been held, has a financial award of 10,000 euros and aims to recognize the trajectory and constant dedication of those people or organizations that stand out for their contribution to the promotion of human rights, solidarity, justice and cooperation.
Julián Carlos Ríos, doctor of laws, lawyer and professor of Penitentiary Law at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI-ICADE, practices as a criminal and penitentiary lawyer, linked to social groups supporting excluded people since 1999. In addition to this activity and his teaching work , has given various presentations and has participated in the publication of numerous studies focused on reviewing the current penal system, and aimed at the application of more revolutionary measures. In 2010, he launched the platform Another Criminal Law is Possible, together with other legal experts, such as prosecutors, magistrates, lawyers and professors, and is currently working on a cutting-edge restorative justice initiative that seeks mediation between victim and offender. Ríos is related to the aspiration for justice and committed to the cause of the excluded, with them he shares his home, his fears, his time, his joys and aspirations. He has published books such as winds of freedom y 15 hidden stories, Dignity and marginalization, Plowing between stones, a synthesis of 25 years living with simplicity the value of hospitality and the healing force of solidarity and justice, and, more recently, Life imprisonment in Spain. Reasons for its ethical illegitimacy and unconstitutionality, in which he argues against the life imprisonment that is proposed to be introduced in the Penal Code.
The jury of the XIII Foundation for Justice-Bancaja Foundation Award has been chaired by Xavier Adsara, General Director of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, an entity awarded in the previous edition, and formed by Antonio Gastaldi, Autonomous Secretary of Justice of the Generalitat Valenciana; Antonio Torres, Ombudsman of the socialist group in Les Corts Valencianes; José María Tomás y Tío, President of the Foundation for Justice; Rafael Alcón, President of the Bancaja Foundation; Ana Móner, Vice President of the Foundation for Justice; Pedro Nácher, patron of the Foundation for Justice; María José Ferrer, trustee of the Bancaja Foundation; Isabel Rubio, Manager of the Bancaja Foundation; José Alfonso Soria, Vice President of the Water Court of Valencia; Josep Buades, Director of Ceimigra representing the Jesuit Refugee Service; José Máximo Lledó, President of Maides, and Miguel Falomir, Secretary of the Foundation for Justice, as secretary of the jury.
This award was granted for the first time in 1995 to Adolfo Suárez, and in successive editions it has recognized the work of the Tribunal de las Aguas de la Vega of Valencia, the Association of Victims of Terrorism, the Association for the Search of Boys and Girls Disappeared (El Salvador), Professor Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh), Bogaletch Gebre (Ethiopia), Father Vicente Berenguer (Mozambique), Dr. Pedro Cavadas (Valencia), the Missionaries of Charity (India), the Jesuit Service to Refugees (Rome), from the Maides Foundation (Valencia) and from Richard Frechette, Director of Our Little Brothers in Haiti.