The counterclaims expressed by the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, and the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, have been echoed: finally, the Congressional investigation commission on the purchases of medical supplies in the pandemic will not summon the chief prosecutor to appear. of Anti-Corruption or other prosecutors despite the fact that this had been agreed on Tuesday, as confirmed by parliamentary sources.
Bolaños was forceful this Wednesday by openly disavowing the socialist parliamentary group, which, together with his partners, had approved 24 hours before requesting the appearance of several prosecutors—the head of Anti-Corruption, Alejandro Luzón, and two European prosecutors—in that commission. “It makes no sense for judges and magistrates to testify to investigative commissions about cases they are hearing, and the same principle applies to prosecutors: it also makes no sense for them to testify about cases they are investigating in their capacity as prosecutors,” said the minister. That statement added to the discomfort conveyed by the State Attorney General's Office itself, which on Tuesday asked by letter to the president of the commission to reconsider the decision to call Luzon to testify. The parliamentary committee will now vote, on a date yet to be determined, to exclude these subpoenas, as confirmed by parliamentary sources. The lawyers of the Cortes, in any case, had determined that there was nothing irregular in them, and there are precedents.
The request for prosecutors to appear was not an initiative of the PSOE, which did not include them in its initial list of 84 requests. But, after negotiation with their partners, the socialists agreed and signed a definitive list that did include them. The demand to call the prosecutors and specifically the anti-corruption prosecutor was included in the EH Bildu proposal, according to parliamentary sources, and the PSOE ended up accepting it.
The seven groups that make up the investiture bloc presented different proposals and the socialists chose to add them all, with which a list of 134 attendees was finally agreed upon. This is how the agreement was reached to summon, in addition to many politicians from different parties, positions and experts, three prosecutors: Alejandro Luzón, head of Anti-Corruption; Ignacio de Lucas, prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor's Office who has taken on the
Koldo case; and
Codruta Kovesi, chief prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor's Office. Those are the three names that will now be removed from the list.
The socialists had already firmly rejected, in other cases of investigation commissions, the demand of Junts and other groups to bring judges to the investigation commissions, and Bolaños had promised that the PSOE would never support it. But about the prosecutors they were not so blunt. On Tuesday, in the session of the Congressional commission on the purchases of medical supplies in a pandemic, EH Bildu requested the presence of Luzón to offer a global vision of the problems that are found in that Prosecutor's Office when investigating cases of corruption, as highlighted socialist sources and also from the abertzale group. Junts pointed out, for its part, the prosecutor De Lucas. The commission's lawyers did not raise any legal problems.
The general criterion of legal experts in Congress is that all people summoned to a commission of inquiry have the obligation to appear, although on this point there are known discrepancies with the General Council of the Judiciary, the governing body of judges. A different thing is that those appearing are obliged to respond when asked about specific investigations that they know about. In the specific case of summonses to prosecutors there is no special safeguard that protects them, and in fact there have been precedents of their presentations in investigative commissions, as happened with Eduardo Fungairiño in the 11-M commission.
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In any case, this situation will be corrected immediately and even more so after the commission becomes aware of the anger of the Attorney General's Office and the wake-up call of Bolaños, who took the side of Álvaro García Ortiz. The attorney general, in his letter to the president of the congressional investigative commission, alleged that Anti-Corruption is directly involved in many procedures that are the subject of the commission and that appearance “could disrupt the work of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which is the exercise of criminal action.” public," say sources from the Public Ministry. “The appearance could constitute an inconvenience for the processing of fiscal and judicial investigations of a confidential nature or, even, for the allegations to the right of defense that those affected by such investigations could make,” these sources add.
In the socialist group they have confirmed the clear and “founded” position of La Moncloa, the minister and the Prosecutor's Office, and they are going to take it into account, although they insist that there was nothing illegal in the initial intention of calling the prosecutors. The president of the commission, the socialist Alejandro Soler, “will attend to these arguments,” according to parliamentary sources, and is already studying in which meeting he will propose a new vote to reverse the one registered on Tuesday. The list of appearances approved that day went ahead with the vote of the PSOE, Sumar and all its usual partners, and the vote against the PP and Vox, which disqualified the commission as a “paripé.”
The first summons have already been set: next Monday morning, the president of the Court of Accounts will appear; and in the afternoon, starting at 4:00 p.m., the former Minister of Health and PSC candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa.
Feijóo censures “discrediting” the Prosecutor's Office
The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has censured the attempt to “discredit” the Prosecutor's Office with the summons to prosecutors in Congress after the PP campaign against the attorney general. The popular leader criticized this Wednesday that the socialists accepted this Tuesday, at the request of their parliamentary partners, the summons of several prosecutors - including the Anti-Corruption prosecutor - in the Congressional investigation commission into the purchase of medical supplies in a pandemic, although This Wednesday they have backed down and will not be summoned. “It is regrettable that Mr. Sánchez and Mr. Bolaños have said actively and passively that they were not going to accept the appearance of the State Attorney General or the prosecutors and yesterday [this Tuesday] they signed the appearance of the prosecutors. If the president's word has no value, the Government ceases to have value. We live in a constant democratic anomaly,” Feijóo censured, before concluding: “It is regrettable that we bring a prosecutor to appear because there are a series of deputies who want to discredit the Prosecutor's Office.” The leader of the PP has charged against the attempts to discredit the prosecutor's office, but the PP has been engaged in a campaign of attacks against the State Attorney General for months, of whom Feijóo himself has even asked for the resignation,
reports Elsa García de Blas.
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