The lawsuit filed by a private citizen in the National Court The institutional gifts that the President of the Government does not disclose are reaching their final stage with the conclusions phase. As stated in the records, The gifts that Pedro Sánchez receivesboth in the celebration of acts and events, as well as those received by any means in the Presidency of the Government, They are deposited in the premises of the Council of Ministers building and the Moncloa Palace, after simple annotation with details of the circumstances of the reception.
For the plaintiff, this practice goes “against the provisions of Article 8 of Law 33/2003, of November 3, on the Assets of Public Administrations”, which states that they must comply with the principles of “publicity, transparency, competition and objectivity in the acquisition”, as well as the “identification and control through appropriate inventories or records”.
Furthermore, according to Article 34 of Law 33/2003, of November 3, on the Assets of Public Administrations, the competent Administration must proceed to the “immediate recording in the general inventory of assets and rights of the State of the facts, acts or transactions relating to its assets and rights”.
“As long as there is no formal processing of the act of transfer/acquisition of the gifts received by the President of the Government to the State, the assets do not really belong to the State Heritage,” but are in a legal “limbo” “at your disposal and enjoyment” and “his family and political environment”, but “the expense linked to such gifts Yes, it is charged to the public accounts, within the 912M Program (Presidency of the Government) of the General State Budget, as acknowledged by the defendant Administration itself.” This is despite its “very personal origin by virtue of the position held” by its recipient.
According to the interested party, lawyer Guillermo Rocafort, “It is not enough to allege a general compliance with the current regulations and accept that there is no justification” This is not the only reason why the Court should not provide a response to all the questions raised in this procedure, since otherwise the constitutional right to due transparency would be emptied of content.
He insists in his writing that the answer must be given regarding “insurance that covers the risk of damage or misuse (of the gifts) and, finally, the tax consequences that such use as remuneration in kind would entail to the President of the Government for tax purposes in his personal income tax return.”
Rocafort points out that “the Council for Transparency and Good Government (CTBG) itself recognizes on two occasions” that the Presidency of the Government is “far from the principles of transparency and accountability of public activity” which institutions such as the House of His Majesty the King do comply with, as “would be expected.”
He claims that Pedro Sánchez is “the only head of the Executive of a Member State of the European Union who keeps his institutional gifts hidden from public scrutiny.” And that, furthermore, “no legal norm specifies that the preparation of the inventory and the transfer of the gifts to the State Heritage must be done when the president ceases to hold office. This is certainly an argument that has no legal basis, since it should be done immediately as required by Article 34 of Law 33/2003, of November 3, on the Assets of Public Administrations.
But, the plaintiff adds, “in Spain, customs and general principles of law are also a source of law and should be applied” to these gifts. “in the event that there is no legal regulation that regulates it”.
He also expresses his disagreement that, in the simple notes of Pedro Sánchez’s gifts, the official who makes them “simply makes some ‘personal assessments’, as the Ministry of the Presidency alleges and the Transparency Council accepts”, but that it is “verification of an objective and non-personal fact”.
The official “has indeed made an identification, description (of the details of the reception) and incorporation of the gift into the legal sphere of the Presidency of the Government,” he concludes.
Regarding background, A resolution from 2017 is recalled, during the presidency of Mariano Rajoyin which “there was no mention of the preparation of “previous simple notes with the details of the circumstances of the reception” of the gifts when they are received,” as in this case, “but rather there was a “control” of the gifts received but without the precise detail and systemic ordertherefore, based on the “tradition” of the previous presidents, the information is not available and providing it would entail a process of elaboration”, according to what Moncloa now claims.
“The point is to deny the requested information using any legal excuse, both now and before, thereby violating the due transparency in such a sensitive matter,” says the interested party. He adds that “any democratic society must make public the gifts received by the President of the Government, because Commitments, links and dependencies on donors can be derived from them.which must be known to the public. Only in dictatorships are they kept hidden.
In addition to explaining that this way of proceeding by the Government does not comply with current regulations, for the plaintiff, “it is evident that a gift or donation received by a worker It is a remuneration in kind and must be taxed for it, like the rest of the Spaniards, based on the principle of equality of all citizens.”
For Rocafort it is “very striking that the Presidency of the Government has signed during this judicial procedure an agreement with Culture” that will not be applied “to the gifts received by Pedro Sánchez”. “It seems,” he concludes, “that the reaction of the current Presidency of the Government is audit the gifts of his predecessors in office and not his ownwhich he has been receiving since 2018,” the time he has been in power.