Álvaro García Ortiz will continue to be attorney general of the State. The Government has agreed to keep him as the head of the Public Ministry during the legislature, as EFE has announced and elDiario.es has confirmed. The head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has agreed to his continuity at a delicate moment for García Ortiz, one day after the Supreme Court annulled the promotion to the highest category of the career of his predecessor, Dolores Delgado, and also when he is questioned by some conservative sectors of the Public Ministry, who criticize the fact that it has not commented on the amnesty law and the mentions of ‘lawfare’ or judicialization of the policy included in the agreement between the PSOE and Junts.
On these issues, García Ortiz has defended that his “public position” must reinforce the “impartiality” of the institution he represents and his actions must be marked by the principles of “objectivity and independence.” This is stated in a letter sent to prosecutors Fidel Cadena, Jaime Moreno, Consuelo Madrigal and Javier Zaragoza – who prosecuted the procés trial – and who asked for an “immediate response” to the aforementioned allusions to the ‘lawfare’ of the pact. between the socialists and Carles Puigdemont’s party.
In that letter, García Ortiz pointed out that any position of the Public Ministry regarding the amnesty law “requires knowing the definitive norm that regulates it” once it has been published in the Official State Gazette. And he recalled that this positioning, which in any case must be “legal technical,” “will be carried out through statutory channels and in the procedures in which the intervention of the Prosecutor’s Office is requested.”
García Ortiz’s response motivated another letter from 18 prosecutors from the Criminal Section of the Supreme Court in which they criticized him for not having come out in defense of the prosecutors of the process. The prosecutors, colleagues of those who promoted the accusation of rebellion in the process, expressed their “disappointment” and accused him of “deliberately ignoring” providing a response to the “very serious situation” that, they claimed, the Prosecutor’s Office is going through with “unjustified attacks.” to those who have participated in judicial processes regarding the Catalan independence movement.
This Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s decision to annul Delgado’s promotion to the highest category of the prosecutor’s career was added to the controversy surrounding the amnesty law and lawfare more than a year ago. The judges partially upheld the appeal against García Ortiz’s decision to appoint Delgado as prosecutor before the Supreme Court after his departure from the State Attorney General’s Office. In the ruling, the judges of the High Court leave in writing serious accusations against the attorney general for “misuse of power” in that appointment. The PP asked for her resignation after learning of that resolution.
The State Attorney General is appointed and dismissed by the king but at the proposal of the Government after collecting non-binding reports from the General Council of the Judiciary and Congress. García Ortiz arrived at that position in July 2022, after Delgado resigned for health reasons. Until then, she had been his right-hand man as head of the Technical Secretariat of the State Attorney General’s Office, a key position in the organization. García Ortiz had arrived at that position in March 2020 from the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor’s Office of Galicia and was a member of the Prosecutor’s Council for the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF), having been the most voted candidate in the last elections held. presented. He is an environmental specialist and led the prosecution in the Prestige disaster trial.
Source: www.eldiario.es
