The Government is not in favor of judges appearing in committees in Congress. Despite the fact that in order for Pedro Sánchez to be sworn in as president, the socialists agreed with ERC and Junts to create a commission in the Lower House of two commissions that will deal with the jihadist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils on August 17, 2017 and on the so-called ‘Operation Catalonia’, already approved, their position is that the judges do not go to them. Government sources explain that when the lists of those appearing are voted on, where the pro-independence supporters will include names of magistrates, the PSOE will vote against.
“They can’t go, they shouldn’t go and it doesn’t make sense for them to go,” say government sources. Junts and ERC advocate citing them. It will, therefore, mean a clash between the PSOE and its governance partners. “It is neither spoken, nor agreed, nor agreed upon,” the Executive insists. “There are no commissions against judges.” The President of the Government himself, Pedro Sánchez, in an informal conversation with journalists during the Christmas drink at La Moncloa, made this position explicit: “We are not going to accept the appearances of judges in Congress.” And he added: “We do not agree.”
This is one more step in the Government’s intention to redirect the relationship with the judges. “The relationship is fine, it is good,” say government sources. This rejection of judges appearing in Congress occurs after Junts warned judges on Monday that appearances at parliamentary headquarters in Congress are “mandatory, and otherwise there may be the criminal consequences currently provided for.” “.
The intention of La Moncloa is that this situation does not even have to occur, because they understand that with their vote against, that of the PSOE, added to that of the PP and Vox, those requests of the independentistas will not go ahead. It will create a conflict between governance partners but a new fire with the judges will be avoided
In the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, clarified this Tuesday that judges “have no obligation to attend parliamentary commissions of inquiry”, nor to the recently created to detect alleged cases of lawfare, because in addition “it would not be of any use either.”
This is how Bolaños expressed himself at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, in which he explained that from the “legal and constitutional framework that regulates the investigative commissions, it follows that the investigative commissions can neither review judicial resolutions nor bind the courts”.
“The law itself also establishes that judges and magistrates have no obligation to attend investigative commissions and they have no obligation to attend because the law says so, but it would also not be of any use,” he explained.
And this is so, the minister has pointed out, “because all the knowledge that the judges and magistrates have of these criminal cases is from having been the judges and magistrates of those procedures.” “And it is just what the law prohibits that can be revealed, therefore I believe that this debate, just from the reading of the Constitution, the organic law of the Judiciary and the regulations of Congress itself, is a debate that is resolved very clearly,” he concluded.
About twenty prosecutors from the Supreme Court, including the four prosecutors from the trial chamber, have asked this Tuesday the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, to act against the accusation of the Junts spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, Miriam Nogueras, in front of the judges of the Supreme Court.
Specifically, they request the head of the Prosecutor’s Office to adopt “the legal measures and actions of all kinds that are relevant, appropriate and necessary to preserve the legality and independence of the courts.”
In the document sent to García Ortiz, to which EL MUNDO has had access, the 21 signatory prosecutors express their “most energetic rejection of the insults, threats and false accusations made, taking refuge in the parliamentary forum, against the aforementioned people, since they do not Not only are they seriously harmful to the personal and institutional dignity of those affected (members of other powers of the State), but they are also absolutely incompatible with the ethics and institutional respect of a State of Law, while at the same time they represent an unjustifiable attack against judicial independence and against the separation of powers as the backbone principle of a democratic society”.
Likewise, the prosecutors of the High Court recall that article 124.1 of the Constitution expressly establishes that “the Public Prosecutor’s Office, without prejudice to the functions entrusted to other bodies, has the mission of promoting the action of justice in defense of legality, of rights of citizens and the public interest protected by law, ex officio or at the request of interested parties, as well as ensuring the independence of the Courts and seeking before them the satisfaction of the social interest.”
For this reason, and in response to “the subjection to this constitutional and statutory mandate” they ask the attorney general to “proceed without further delay to the fulfillment of the constitutional and legal duties set out above, and to adopt as the first defender and guarantor of order “constitutional legal measures and actions of all kinds that are pertinent, appropriate and necessary to preserve the legality and independence of the courts, whose actions are being unduly questioned by the aforementioned demonstrations.”
The Prosecutorial Council is scheduled to meet this Wednesday and address, following the joint request of the members of the Association of Prosecutors and the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors, the accusations of lawfare against members of the Judiciary by the fugitive’s party. Carles Puigdemont.
In the prosecutor’s race there is deep discomfort due to the attitude of the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, since they consider that he is “putting himself in profile” in the face of the attacks by the pro-independence forces on the judges and prosecutors who intervened in the different causes related to the Catalan separatist challenge.
