Benito Pabón y Suárez de Urbina

Benito Pabón y Suárez de Urbina[1] (25 March 1895 – 1958) was an Andalusian lawyer, trade unionist and member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain for the city of Zaragoza during the last legislature of the republican period.[2] He was a lawyer of the workers and peasants of the CNT, later becoming part of the trentista current - first joining the Federal Democratic Republican Party and later the Syndicalist Party.

Benito Pabón y Suárez de Urbina
Member of the Congress of Deputies
In office
21 February 1936 – 2 February 1939
PresidentManuel Azaña
Prime MinisterFrancisco Largo Caballero (1936-1937),
Juan Negrín (1937-1939)
Parliamentary groupPopular Front
ConstituencyZaragoza
General Secretary of Aragon
In office
21 December 1936 – 10 August 1937
PresidentJoaquín Ascaso
Personal details
Born(1895-03-25)25 March 1895
Seville,
 Andalusia
Died1958(1958-00-00) (aged 62–63)
Colón,
 Panama
Citizenship Spain
NationalityAndalusian
Political partySyndicalist Party
Other political
affiliations		CNT
Parents
  • Benito Pabón y Galindo (father)
  • Teresa Suárez de Urbina y Cañaveral (mother)
OccupationLawyer
ProfessionLabor law

Biography

Benito Pabón y Suárez de Urbina was born in Seville on 25 March 1895[3] into a wealthy family. His father, Benito Pabón y Galindo, was an Integrist, and his mother, Teresa Suárez de Urbina y Cañaveral, was a Carlist. His uncle José Ignacio Suárez de Urbina was a prominent Catholic publicist and leader of the Traditionalist Communion in Córdoba. In his youth, Benito was also a member of the Carlist cause and was part of the Jaimista Youth of Villanueva del Río.[4] Benito later studied with the Jesuits and at the Law Institute of Seville, then went on to work as a labor lawyer in Granada, Zaragoza and Madrid.

Second Republic

During the time of the Second Spanish Republic, he led the defense of various cases related to workers' causes. As a lawyer, Pabón defended the farmers implicated in the Casas Viejas incident,[nota 1] as well as those jailed after the anarchist insurrection of January 1933.[6]

In the 1936 Spanish general election he was elected deputy of Zaragoza, with 44,545 votes out of the 85,178 cast,[7] running as an independent.[nota 2] In parliament, on 3 July 1936 he responded to Angel Galarza (PSOE) in relation to the amnesty of political prisoners, arguing against the interpretation given to the Ley de vagos y maleantes:[11]

[...] The concept that has been held in Spain regarding amnesty responded to the legal reality of not having the ley de vagos y maleantes, which is a shame really, because things are as they are and not as we want them to be, and although we persist in saying that the imprisonment of those declared socially dangerous is not a punishment - go and ask them or their children, it is a real punishment and a punishment that they are really suffering. But if there were no legal reason for what I intend there would be a practical reason: that of wanting to fulfill a promise of an electoral pact.[12]

Civil War

On 18 July 1936 Pabón was in Madrid, integrating into the Harriers Column. He was later elected as General Secretary of the Regional Defense Council of Aragon[13] and was a member of the Legal Commission of the Ministry of Justice under Joan García Oliver. As a defense lawyer of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Catalan: Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista, POUM),[nota 3] he had to go into exile in August 1938, and commented on what happened in May 1937:

[...] this hegemony of the Communist Party means, and the facts show, the implantation of the political methods characteristic of Russia. The disappearance and assassination of Andreu Nin was an alarming and tragic symptom.

— Letter to the clandestine Executive Committee of the POUM.[17]

Exile

After a short stay in France he left for the Philippines.[15] But when Japanese forces occupied Manila he was imprisoned in the military prison of Fuerte Santiago, from which he was released in the fall of 1942.[18] He then left for Latin America, earning a living as a Spanish language teacher in Santiago de Veraguas and Colón, where he settled permanently after a stay in Mexico. He died in Panama in 1958.[3]

Notes
  1. Together with Manuel Blasco Garzón y José Monje Bernal.[5]
  2. Although some sources link his seat to the Syndicalist Party,[8] Manuel Tuñón de Lara explicitly stated that he did not belong to the party and that Pestaña was the only syndicalist deputy elected in the 1936 elections,[9] this was also supported by Eduardo Comín Colomer, who separated Pabón, whom he lists as an "independent trade unionist", from Pestaña's seat with the Syndicalist Party.[10]
  3. Among which was, among others, Julián Gorkin,[14] Encargado inicialmente de la defensa, abandonaría el caso, al sentirse amenazado por los comunistas, cuya prensa le habría etiquetado como «espía».[15] Fue sustituido por Vicente Rodríguez Revilla.[16][15]

References
  1. Peláez 2000, pp. 109–116.
  2. "Pabón y Suárez de Urbina, Benito". Historic summary of Members of the Congress (1810-1977). Congrés dels Diputats. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  3. Sierra & Gracia 2012, p. 52.
  4. Desde Utrera: Mitin contra la blasfemia. Granada: La Verdad. March 4, 1913. p. 2.
  5. Gutiérrez Molina 2015.
  6. Gutiérrez-Álvarez, Pepe (February 23, 2009). "Benito Pabón, el abogado de los obreros y campesinos de la CNT" (in Spanish). Kaos en la Red. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016.
  7. "56. Elecciones 16.2.1936". Historic summary of Members of the Congress (1810-1977). Congrés dels Diputats. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
  8. Pascual 1986, p. 401.
  9. Tuñón de Lara 1976, p. 145.
  10. Comín Colomer 1967, p. 170.
  11. Peláez, Manuel J. (January 2009). "De Ángeles de la guarda de la República a Demonios del Movimiento Nacional. Las relaciones de dos grandes abogados republicanos Ángel Galarza Gago (1892-1966) y Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo (1873-1946): la fácil entente de dos ministros con tres ideologías diferentes (la demócrata cristiana, la radical socialista y el socialismo largocaballerista)" (PDF) (in Spanish). Contribuciones a las Ciencias Sociales.
  12. "Diario de Sesiones de las Cortes". No. 56. July 3, 1936. p. 1880.
  13. Kelsey 1991, pp. 160–161.
  14. Febus (July 29, 1937). Una nota del ministro de Justicia sobre los encartados por delitos de alta traición (in Spanish). Madrid: ABC. p. 6.
  15. Alba & Schwartz 2008, pp. 256–267.
  16. Godicheau 2005, p. 858.
  17. Colección, Filae (1989). El proceso del POUM. Documentos judiciales y policiales. Barcelona: Ed. Lerna. p. 541-544.
  18. Rodao, Florentino (1993). "Falange en Extremo Oriente, 1936-1945" (in Spanish). University of Tokyo.

Bibliography
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