The Supreme Court has rejected the challenge that the Association of Prosecutors (AF) filed against the confirmation of the appointment of prosecutor Eduardo Esteban —belonging to the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF)— as head of the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office.
The AF, majority in the race and conservative in nature, considered that the then State Attorney General, Dolores Delgado, had failed to comply with a sentence that the Supreme Court itself issued in April annulling the first election of Eduardo Esteban, considering that he had not been motivated enough.
The Association of Prosecutors argued that after the annulment of Esteban's appointment —and the requirement that this appointment be reconsidered and its merits better justified— the attorney general had reiterated her confidence by circumventing the considerations that the Supreme Court had pronounced in its April sentence .
Now, the order of the Supreme Court - for which Judge José Luis Requero has been a rapporteur - reasons that the former attorney general reappointed the prosecutor Eduardo Esteban based on "the broad powers of the attorney general to decide the group of prosecutors through which he intends to help to execute a specific criminal policy within the framework of government action”, an extent that even allows it, if necessary, to declare a summons void.
The resolution assumes that Delgado, who resigned from his position in July of this year, did not fail to comply with the first ruling of the Supreme Court - in which the specialty of the candidates was not considered sufficiently valued - by once again showing his confidence in the elected prosecutor, and that he proceeded to reiterate his appointment exhibiting new arguments.
Delgado reasoned that "if the specialty criterion were followed exclusively, the possibilities of the Chamber Prosecutors to change their specialty or subject would be curtailed" and those "of the attorney general to seek relief in the direction of the specialties, conditioning the professional expectations of second-rate prosecutors that they could only promote by becoming 'hyper-specialists'.
Delgado also explained that after examining the candidacies, he concluded that Esteban's presented "greater qualities to motivate and direct teams, organize and execute projects, assume direct responsibilities, leadership capacity and commitment."
And he added that of his discreet work in the Prosecutor's Office, stating that he was aware of his "'exemplary behavior'" at the service of the institution and "at the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor's Office", to add that "this exemplary character was manifested when he was relieved, because his discretion facilitated the transition to a new model and a new leadership.”
Delgado also defended his appointment because "one of the programmatic axes as Attorney General refers to the gender perspective, and he has perceived it in Mr. Eduardo Esteban during his career in the Prosecutor's Office before the Constitutional Court,"
In its order, the Supreme only criticizes the actions of the former attorney general who turned her response to the incident promoted by the Association of Prosecutors into "an allegation", as if with this she was appealing the sentence that annulled the first appointment of Eduardo Esteban as prosecutor for minors, now adding "reasons that are already inane at this procedural moment."
In this sense, the resolution highlights that "the new proposal already gives reasons based on the characteristics of the position, comparing the merits" of the candidates.
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