The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office considers that the conditions do not exist for the pardon of the eight former senior officials of the Junta de Andalucía, including the former president of the Junta, José Antonio Griñán, convicted of embezzlement in what is known as the political cause of the ERE. The public ministry, in the report requested by the Provincial Court of Seville, which is the one that must decide on the measure of grace, opposes all the arguments presented by the applicants and concludes that “the conduct prosecuted cannot be left without punitive response through partial commutation of the custodial sentence” for “exceeding the exceptional nature that constitutes the pardon.”
Anti-corruption maintains that none of the reasons given by the convicted former senior officials “are related to the nature and purpose of the pardon institute.” Thus, on the argument that there had been no personal gain for those convicted, the Prosecutor's Office points out that the criminal conduct "has been prosecuted with fairness" and within the framework of the crimes attributed to them "that do not require their own money."
Regarding the existence of undue delays by virtue of a process that lasted for 13 years between the investigation and the knowledge of the sentence, the Prosecutor's Office affirms that "none of the sentences include the presence of delays" taking into account the temporal extension and complexity of the facts.
It is in the argument that appeals to the personal and professional career of the convicted persons and their “honesty and trustworthiness” where the public ministry stops most. The report questions this honesty and trustworthiness because it is considered incompatible with “conviction for the most serious crimes within the Public Administration.” It is also argued that in the execution of this conduct “an obvious and flagrant breach of probity in the exercise of public office is detected.” “Embezzlement tends to make possible the trust of society in the honest management of public funds and to guarantee the transparency that public officials have,” continues the report, which recalls that those affected had budgetary credits for “the granting of illegal aid worth 427 million euros.”
All of these arguments allow the Prosecutor's Office to conclude that a pardon for Griñán and the other seven former senior officials of the Board is not possible because the partial commutation of the prison sentence "exceeds the exceptional nature that constitutes the grace of the pardon." “In this scenario, the purposes of retribution, prevention and rehabilitation of sentences do not justify or allow the granting of a partial pardon.”
The Court of Seville, which imposed the sentences for this case in November 2019, is the one that must inform the Government about whether it considers pardoning the former senior officials of the Board. Your decision will be based on this Anti-Corruption report, which was requested at the end of last January, and which has already been sent to you by the Junta de Andalucía, which declared itself as an administration harmed by the embezzlement in which it positioned itself in favor. to demand from those convicted the amounts defrauded. The Court must also collect information on the criminal records of those convicted, the part of the sentence they have served and their conduct in prison.
The decision adopted by the Seville Court only affects eight of the nine former senior officials convicted of embezzlement. As former general director Juan Márquez saw his sentence reduced in the Supreme Court, it will be this instance that decides on his pardon. The former leaders of the Board who depend on the assessment of the Andalusian court are Griñán, former councilors Francisco Vallejo, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, José Antonio Viera and Antonio Fernández and former senior officials Agustín Barberá, Miguel Ángel Serrano and Jesús María Rodríguez. All of them have been imprisoned, except for the former Andalusian president, due to the cancer he suffers from, and Márquez, for having his sentence reduced.
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