Spring ‘hot’ in the dome of the Prosecutor’s Office. The start of the campaign for the elections to the Fiscal Council, scheduled for next Monday April 18, It will be a shock within the career to which some 2,500 officials in Spain belong, who are called to elect their representatives in this body. It is an advisory council that advises the attorney general, Dolores Delgado, on key matters such as appointments and prepares the reports that give this institution a voice on the legislative projects that later reach the Courts.
Nine of the twelve members that make up this body will be chosen by their classmates on May 4, and everything seems to suggest that the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF)to which Delgado belonged and who has been supporting his decisions, could lose one of the four positions he has so far and thus raise the majority of those who belong to the Association of Prosecutors (AF)majority in the race and conservative cut.
The numbers are important, according to career sources consulted by El Periódico de España, a newspaper of the same group, Prensa Ibérica, as this newspaper, because the two ex officio members that complete this body together with the attorney general, who are the Lieutenant Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde, and the chief inspector prosecutor, María Antonia Sanzwere appointed by Delgado, with which, adding the four progressive members, it has been ensuring the majority support of the Council in almost all decisions.
The point is that various sources point to a certain “loneliness” of the attorney general and her most loyal collaborators in front of the bulk of the race, which has been questioning her for the decisions she has made in various matters since she took office after being replaced by the former Minister of Justice Juan Carlos Campo.
The ‘incidents’ that surround Delgado
Among them, those of his appointments in the fiscal domewhich some come to describe as “designed with ideological criteria” more than professionals. And more so since last April 5 the Supreme Court annulled one of them, that of the Chief Prosecutor for Minors, Eduardo Esteban, for “lack of motivation.”
Added to this is the fact that, after the last round of appointments proposed by the Fiscal Council on March 24 -which have not yet been approved by the Council of Ministers- the number of members of the Chamber Prosecutors Board that are part of the progressive association has reached 16 of the total of 33 that make up the summit body of the Public Ministry. Of the rest, seven belong to the majority association, another eight are non-associated and there are two more who once belonged to UPF, but left the association because they disagreed with the line taken by this group.
Other fronts open to Delgado in recent weeks have also reached the courts, such as the issue of the constitution of the Ethics Commission, which should be in charge of interpreting whether the members of the Public Ministry comply with the code of ethics that is theirs. The stoppage ‘sine die’ of the birth of this organwhose six seats had been filled by members of the conservative association, has been brought before the National High Court.
The AF also maintains another dispute before the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJ) on account of the ‘Stampa case’, which has been followed by a new termination request that has had to be answered by the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, who had to explain in parliament that “when governments appoint the Attorney General of the State, then they cannot dismiss her”.
The latest scandal, an amendment introduced ‘under the hood’ in the Bankruptcy Law that modifies the Law that regulates the Statute of the Prosecutor’s Office to ensure that when the position falls on a member of the career, this “will acquire the category of courtroom prosecutor of the Supreme Court once his cessation takes place”, which has been interpreted by the opposition as a “prize” to Delgado by decisions favorable to the Government of Pedro Sánchez. The amendment, which no one believes can prosper after its content is published, went further and created the possibility for the attorney general to acquire the initiative of informing the Government about matters that he considers important to the Executive itself.
impartiality and neutrality
In this scenario, where from various sectors of the tax career comes to question the “impartiality and neutrality” of Delgado, as soon as Holy Week begins, a campaign will start that many predict it will be rougher than expected for elections that should not be politicized, as they are professional or corporate elections.
For this reason, some venture that the same thing may happen to UPF that happened to the Association of Prosecutors (AF) a few years ago, when “the race reacted” and this group lost support in the Fiscal Council after it became clear that its members automatically backed up the decisions of other attorneys general as they were Jose Manuel Maza or Eduardo Torres-Dulce that had not been well received by the majority.
From the most progressive sector of the Race, however, it is pointed out that there is a clear campaign against Attorney General Delgado what is it rebasing limits that until now had not been known in professional fields, and whose objective is clearly to reduce the influence of UPF in the bodies of the race.
Related news
Thus, things, on May 4 attend the elections to the Fiscal Council six AF candidates (Jorge Andújar, Anticorruption prosecutor dedicated in recent months to the investigation of the ‘Villarejo case’) in addition to Roberto Valverde, Beatriz Sánchez Eva Más, Isabel Gómez, and Miguel Rodríguez.
The UPF has proposed another six candidates among which is Luis del Río, superior prosecutor of the Canary Islands, in addition to Belén Marín Yepes, Santiago Mena, Francisco Montijano and Alexandra García Taberner. The Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF), which currently does not have representation on the Prosecution Council, presents its president, Salvador Viada (prosecutor of the Supreme Court and former prosecutor at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Teresa Gálvez and Silvia Lopez.