José Antonio Griñán at the Court of Seville, in November 2019, the day the sentence in the ERE case was notified. Alejandro Ruesga
The rejection of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office for José Antonio Griñán to wait in freedom for the Government's decision on his pardon brings the former Andalusian president closer to jail and increases the pressure on the Executive, which is processing the clemency measure against the historic leader of the PSOE.
Pedro Sánchez avoided giving clues on Friday about whether the Government will grant the pardon, but if the Seville Court assumes the position of the Prosecutor's Office and decides to execute the sentence that sentenced Griñán to six years in prison for prevarication and embezzlement in the
case of the ERE
, the Executive may have to decide whether to release him in the middle of a year full of electoral appointments.
However, the decision of the judges will not be immediate, and may be affected by other resolutions pending from the Supreme Court or by the appeal announced by the defense before the Constitutional Court.
"What the Government does is respect the judicial procedures, they know what my position is and I have stated it on several occasions", the President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE limited himself to saying in the appearance after the summit that Spain and Portugal held on Friday in Viana do Castelo, informs
José Marcos
.
The request from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office for Griñán and the rest of those convicted of the ERE to enter prison coincided with the presence of half the Government in the neighboring country.
Sánchez was accompanied by six socialist ministers, in addition to the second vice president Yolanda Díaz and the minister of Equality Irene Montero, of United We Can: the third vice president and minister of Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, Isabel Rodríguez (Territorial Policy), José Manuel Albares (Foreign ), Fernando Grande-Marlaska (Interior), Raquel Sánchez (Transport), Diana Morant (Science and Innovation) and Reyes Maroto (Industry and Tourism).
More information
The progressive candidate for the Constitutional Court was promoted to the Supreme Court by a conservative CGPJ
The brief presented now by the Prosecutor's Office responds to the request made by the First Section of the Provincial Court of Seville to the accusations so that they report on the request made by Griñán's lawyers and the other eight former senior members of the Board sentenced to prison, who demand that the execution of the prison sentence be suspended while the pardons are processed.
The Prosecutor's Office considers that the sentences must be carried out now and now it is the Court that has to decide, for which there is no set deadline.
The opinion of the Prosecutor's Office is not binding, but it usually has considerable weight in the final decision made by the judges.
To reject the suspension of the sentence, the Prosecutor's Office argues that article 4.4 of the Penal Code, which refers to the fact that, if the sentence is carried out, the purpose of the pardon "could be illusory" is a rule of an "exceptional nature".
In the convictions
of the ERE case
, affirms Anti-Corruption, the sentences imposed "are long enough (...) so that it can be estimated that the possible granting of a pardon is not frustrated by the start of the executions."
In other words, even if the convicts entered prison and were later pardoned, the sentence time they would have served would be proportionally low and the grace measure would continue to have effect.
"In a rule of law, sentences cry out to be fulfilled as an implicit requirement for the effectiveness of judicial protection," the prosecutors conclude, citing a phrase included in several pronouncements of the Constitutional Court.
The decision of the Prosecutor's Office is the same for Griñán and for the other eight convicts who have demanded pardon: the former Andalusian councilors Francisco Vallejo, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, Antonio Fernández and José Antonio Viera, the former deputy councilors Agustín Barberá and Jesús María Rodríguez, as well as the former general director of Labor Juan Márquez and the former general director of the Idea agency Miguel Ángel Serrano Aguilar.
All were firmly condemned in September by the Supreme Court, which concluded that the former Andalusian government leader created and maintained, between 2000 and 2009, a system of socio-labour aid to avoid "all administrative control" and dispose of public money "from discretionary” and “outside all legality”.
This discrepancy in the Chamber is seen by the defense as an open door both to challenge the ruling with resources before the Supreme Court itself and, if it does not agree with them, before the Constitutional Court, as well as to pave the way for pardons.
The Government has always avoided advancing what its position will be, but the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, did take the step a few weeks ago to question Griñán's conviction during a control session in the Senate in which she influenced the two individual votes and underlined the rejection that the resolution has generated in part from "criminal doctrine."
Llop cited an article by Professor of Criminal Law Gonzalo Quintero Olivares, published in
Diario de Sevilla
,
which describes as "legal extravagance" the fact that justice, "in its vast majority [...] went to just and correct destinations, and that only a minority package registered deviations, which shows that in some the diversion was 'programmed' by the Administration”.
The pardon is a discretionary measure that the Government does not have to argue, although the law does require that it not be arbitrary and that it be motivated by reasons of justice, equity or public interest.
In the case of Griñán, the petition made by his family, to which more than 4,000 signatures have been attached, is based on reasons of "humanity and equity", for which he refers to the "personal and exceptional circumstances" of the former president. Andalusian, 76 years old and "with an impeccable life trajectory characterized by his fight for freedom and democracy, equality and the welfare state", as well as a "profound respect for State institutions".
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