The Supreme Court has agreed to open proceedings and investigate the senator of the Popular Party (PP) José Manuel Baltar upon seeing evidence of a crime against road safety, and has appointed the judge of the Criminal Chamber Ana Ferrer as the investigator of the case. .
On September 27, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court received testimony of a quick trial and urgent proceedings sent by the courts of Zamora and Puebla de Sanabria, initiated by virtue of a report from the Civil Guard for the commission of an alleged crime against security. road when the senator and president of the PP of Ourense was driving a motor vehicle at a speed higher than that determined in the Penal Code.
Once it was confirmed that Baltar is a senator in the current legislature, the Supreme Court requested a report from the Prosecutor’s Office, which declared the jurisdiction of the Chamber to hear it and make the appointment of an instructor.
In its order, the Supreme Court explains that, before the case was sent to the high court, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had presented a document of accusation against Baltar, considering him the author of a crime against road safety, in the form of driving motor vehicles at speed. speed higher than that legally permitted in article 379.1 of the Penal Code.
And he had requested the imposition of a six-month fine at a daily rate of 10 euros, with the subsidiary personal liability that in case of non-payment establishes article 53 of the Penal Code and 1 year and 1 day of deprivation of the right to drive motor vehicles and mopeds.
The investigating court, in accordance with the provisions of article 800.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law, had agreed to open the oral trial against Baltar for facts allegedly constituting a crime of speed driving significantly higher than Regulation LO 15/2007.
But, having accredited the status of senator appointed by the Parliament of Galicia, the Criminal Court No. 1 of Zamora, by order dated September 13, 2023, agreed to inhibit and refer the proceedings in favor of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, in view of the fact that Baltar currently holds the status of senator, and there being indications of the commission of a criminal act by said person certified before the Chamber, agrees that it is competent to hear it, so it proceeds to open the procedure.
The events date back to Sunday, April 23, when Baltar was intercepted, according to the final report of the Civil Traffic Guard, at 215 kilometers per hour on the A-52, as it passed through Asturianos, at the wheel of a car from the Ourense Provincial Council.
The PPdeG proposed Baltar to be representative of Galicia in the Upper House just a month after he resigned from continuing as head of the Provincial Council after 11 years. After failing to achieve an absolute majority in the provincial corporation in the May 28 elections, he thus sought to make it easier for his party to retain it, as he himself stated.
Baltar’s resignation allowed a change of cycle in the provincial institution after more than three decades linked to his surname – first at the hands of his father, José Luis Baltar, and then under his mandate. Now the mayor of O Pereiro de Aguiar, Luis Menor, from the trusted orbit of the Galician leadership of the PP, presides over the institution.
