The Supreme Court has upheld this Tuesday the appeal filed by Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos against the decision of the Ministry of the Interior to remove him from the headquarters of the Madrid Civil Guard Command after refusing to inform the Government of the judicial investigations into the demonstration held on March 8, 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Ministry of the Interior led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska dismissed him, alleging loss of confidence.
In May 2020, when Marlaska gave the political order to strike down the colonel of the Benemérita, the head of court 51 in Madrid had proceedings open in which she had commissioned the Civil Guard to investigate how the health authorities acted during the origin of the pandemic.
The troops of Pérez de los Cobos -in their role as judicial police- had recently sent the judge reports on meetings in which the former minister Salvador Illa and the government health spokesman in the coronavirus crisis, Fernando Simón, had been. In addition, in the case (which was finally archived) the former government delegate in Madrid José Manuel Franco was taken as a defendant. Pérez de los Cobos defended at all times the confidentiality of judicial investigations and that cost him his job.
Three years later, the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court upholds the appeal against the judgment of the National Court of September 15, 2021 that had confirmed on appeal his dismissal as head of the Madrid Command. Said resolution is annulled, according to legal sources.
Consequently, the judgment of the Central Court of the National High Court is confirmed, which had previously annulled the decision of Minister Marlaska, considering that the dismissal was in retaliation for the decision of Pérez de la Cobos to comply with the order of the judge investigating the case of 8-M of not informing superiors about the details of the judicial procedure.
The legal representation of Pérez de los Cobos, exercised by the lawyer Carlos Aguilar, considered that the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Hearing departed from the consolidated jurisprudence of the High Court on the duty to provide reasons for the dismissals of public officials assigned to freely appointed posts, since he considered that it does not apply to civil guards. The termination was ultimately arbitrary.
After learning of the Supreme Court ruling, Interior sources indicate that they are waiting to know the full content of the sentence that will be notified in the coming days. From the portfolio directed by Grande-Marlaska they assure that the underlying reasons that influenced the termination “persist”.
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