Excuse me... but I’m not going to sketch a typical portrait of Carmelo. His figure far exceeds my limited capacity to grasp his intellectual scope and humanity.

The magnitude of Carmelo’s curriculum vitae transcends his status as Dean of the Faculty of Law, as Professor of Financial and Tax Law, the fact that he has developed his professional career under the guidance of his mentor, Juan Martín Queralt, or that he co-authored the best textbook in the field, the Curso de Derecho Financiero y Tributario (Financial and Tax Law Course), to his quality as an intellectual and human reference in the Faculty of Law.

Those of us with offices hear to his are well aware of the constant pilgrimage of colleagues from all departments and walks of life to his office for advice on all manner of legal, academic and management matters An office that will continue to be his so long as we continue to pass through the corridor, where he would appear with a discreet walk – aware that if he were heard he would be immediately and mercilessly summoned to settle academic or personal matters –, black glasses and the way he kept his keys on his key ring; those of us who love him. And so it was every day, for years, a reflection not only of his profound knowledge of law, teaching pedagogy and university management, but above all his kindness and human qualities. I never saw him nervous; I never saw him hurry in any situation; he always found a way; intelligent and fair – his partner, always at his side, right to the end.

To his intellectual stature I can only lend my admiration, unable to gauge its full dimension. I can only express the joy of talking to him about law. Reflected in his deep and judicious ideas you could glimpse the true meaning of law, his ideal form of justice and his character as a tool in the struggle for a better and fairer society. To talk to him about law was to reconcile oneself with the world, opening a window of hope for a future in which freedom, equality and solidarity would fully order society, beyond mere formal, empty files, visualising a legal standard for which one could continue to clumsily strive to create legal knowledge, aspiring to touch that world of ideas that he handled with mastery. Listening to him talk about law fully justified a career choice as a university lecturer. Anyone who has listened to or talked to Carmelo about law knows what I am talking about. He wasn’t just a brilliant jurist, he was a legal humanist. Light of knowledge.

A scintillating brilliance that was enhanced, if possible, all the more by his humanity. His work as a teacher, counsellor, confessor, psychologist, friend and companion to the members of the Financial and Tax Law Department and to many of his colleagues in the Faculty was never underestimated. For those of us who carried out management tasks in the Department, Carmelo was the hearing process, the sine qua non for making a decision; or, to put it more clearly, he was the person you had to listen to if you wanted to be sure that what you were going to advocate in the Department Council would have a guarantee of achieving its goal. But here, as in the creation of knowledge, he did not exercise his ‘powers’. The knowledge, the will, the decision, when it came to him, was formed on the basis of his 'auctoritas', acquired through his commitment to the university.

I still remember when I first arrived to the Faculty and starting to work with him. He was the Dean, I was immersed in my thesis, and when I would visit the Dean’s Office, in the old Faculty building on Blasco Ibáñez, he would make me come in and sit down in one of the chairs he had in his office for visitors. Immediately he would get up from his Dean’s chair and, to my amazement, sit down next to me in the other visitor’s chair, and we would start talking about law. In those moments, when I saw a legal eminence, and a better man, was willing to go to the trouble to show me that law is built on legal logic and the ideal of justice, and not on hierarchy, my only regret was not being brilliant enough to pay full tribute to his teachings.

See you in Fallas! You told me the last time I saw you in the parking of the Faculty... I’ll answer you now... Of course, MAESTRO... I will see you... ALWAYS...

Cristóbal Borrero