I read, without surprise, the journey that an active prosecutor, leader of a very minority association of prosecutors, made through several newspapers to question the Constitutional Institution of the Public Prosecutor's Office, undermining its credibility, and causing serious damage to the Rule of Law.
It argues about the principles of legality and impartiality and about the hierarchical dependency that governs the Institution, but forgets something fundamental: the constitutional mandate to defend the public interest and promote social interest before the Courts, and it is not the officials, however important they may be. are considered, those that must be interpreted by the social interest or the public interest that must be taken into consideration by the actions of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
That corresponds to the Attorney General proposed by a Government that is born from a Parliament voted by the citizens.
Not from the corporate will of the officials.
It is the will derived from the electoral process.
The same thing always happens.
When it is the Government of the party that is now in the opposition that, legitimately and legally, proposes the Attorney General of the State, and he determines the criteria for action of the Institution in accordance with the laws, and appoints the Chamber prosecutors and Chief Prosecutors who must carry out the aforementioned criteria, everything is correct and normal, but if an Attorney General proposed by a progressive Government does it with the same legitimacy and legality, everything is incorrect, everything is a fraud against the rule of law, They are all inappropriate appointments.
In short, it seems that defining the social interest and the public interest and the right to direct the Institution is the heritage of only a few, perhaps because they believe that it corresponds to them, with their criteria, forever.
But the discourse that has been made in the press reaches its greatest severity when it is insinuated that the laws are being distorted and twisted to favor certain political interests.
And the honesty of the professionals responsible for the Prosecutor's Office is questioned, who have the constitutional and legal duty to establish their criteria for action in the processes, as has been done and must always be done, after the corresponding debate, with all the data for study, within the legal framework that governs the Institution.
And along with all this, the well-known personal attacks on the previous Attorney General as well as the current one.
If you want to know what all these accusations mean, as well as the content of the report approved by a politically significant majority within the discredited and expired CGPJ, you should see and listen to the appearance of the current Attorney General before the Justice Commission of the Congress of the Deputies, where it is his duty to speak and present his leadership criteria, and where the representatives of the people declared him suitable for the position.
There, the Prosecutor had the opportunity to defend his professionalism and legal and personal integrity before all the parliamentary groups, something that he cannot do from the same platforms and conditions that others use to irresponsibly do harm, and from which they encourage political/judicial operations aimed at to try to limit the legitimate and obligatory exercise of promoting social interest before the Courts.
Perhaps, because that social interest is not the one that the sectors that seek to hold power at all costs do not like.
I believe that citizens do not deserve the treatment that some give to Constitutional Institutions, seriously damaging citizen credibility in them.
Félix Pantoja García
is a retired Supreme Court Prosecutor.
Former member of the CGPJ.
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