The appointment of Dolores Delgado as Prosecutor for Human Rights and Democratic Memory is still in the hands of the Supreme Court (TS). After canceling his first designation for the position by the High Court by appreciating indications of incompatibility in the professional activity of his partner, Baltasar Garzón, the Association of Prosecutors (AF), the main association of the career also resorted to his second appointment. This took place in July last year, after the Fiscal Council endorsed the absence of that incompatibility in a vote in which seven of the twelve members of the advisory body refused to position themselves in protest of the insufficient information that, they complained, they had been provided.
That resource, to which it has had access to reason and that is still pending decision by the Fourth Section of the Third Chamber of the TS, warns of the existence of “clear irregularities” and “numerous” in the procedure that concluded with a new appointment of the former minister as prosecutor for democratic memory by the Council of Ministers
According to the claim of the association chaired by Cristina Dexeus, the refusal of the Attorney General to facilitate the file with all the information claimed to the six members of the Association and that of the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF) – which also refused to participate in the vote – “supposes an irregularity” that prevented the counselors “the analysis of the issues and the issuance of an informed vote.”
The head of the Inspection, María Antonia Sanz -Respaldada by García Ortiz- refused to gather the information that these seven vowels considered essential to pronounce on that alleged incompatibility for the position of Delgado and even wielded the lack of sufficient personnel to carry out that documentation compilation. But for the recurring association “it is notorious that fiscal inspection has sufficient means to practice the proceedings that were requested and what happened is that I did not want to practice them.”
“250 proceedings could occur to me”
“I think that more proceedings should not be practiced,” he closed in Banda García Ortiz, who declined that additional information. “I could think of 250 proceedings, and the inspector another 250, and each of us another 250. But it has not been so …”, then argued.
The vowels claimed the Statutes and Memories of Fibgar, the Specialized Human Rights Foundation that Garzón presided until July last year; reports incorporated into the Democratic Memory Law; The annual statutes and accounts of Ilocad, the office directed by the former National Court “to determine the aims and functions that he develops and analyzed his coincidence with Fibgar”; and the necessary actions to determine what is understood by “professional intermediation activities” (included in the corporate purpose of Ilocad).
Likewise, the AF intended to be accredited when it was stated that the replacement registration process of the President of Fibgar had begun.
The recurring association does appreciate a conflict of interest of “special gravity” because Garzón “is director of a professional office dedicated to the matters that are the competence of the Prosecutor’s Office of Democratic Memory and Human Rights” that now directs his wife and, in addition, “it was the one who wrote through the Fibgar Association the opinions on which the Democratic Memory Law was based”, as recorded in the exposition of the exposition of the rule. Garzón, highlights, “has made the defense of human rights the cornerstone of its activity.”
Garzón resigned as president of the Foundation
It is precisely the resignation of Garzón as president of the Board of Trustees of the Fibgar Foundation on June 26, 2023, one of the arguments that both thin and the fiscal inspection use to rule out any cause of incompatibility. “The person who preaches that incompatibility is no longer a patron saint of the Foundation,” Garcia Ortiz came to settle at the meeting of the Council again questioned.
But the AF maintains that when the Fiscal Council met on June 8, 2023 – which concluded with the first appointment proposal of the former Attorney General for Garzón “was president of the Foundation.”
And since, it emphasizes, by annulled that decision (for having deprived the Fiscal Council to value that alleged incompatibility) the Supreme ordered to retrace at that time the procedure – to give voice to the Council – “in case the introduction of subsequent facts would be allowed to be altering the conditions of the procedure.” The inclusion of new facts, emphasizes, “would harm the expectations of other candidates, and therefore to their fundamental right to access public positions in conditions of equality”, injuring rights “susceptible to constitutional protection.”
For the Association of Prosecutors there is no doubt: “The constituency of the Prosecutor’s Office of Human Rights and Democratic Memory, of the Ilocad and Fibgar Office coincide and the subject subject of its activity also.” Therefore, it is “unquestionable,” he says in his appeal, that Delgado “will have executive powers” in procedures such as the “Argentine complaint” (against the crimes of Franco) that have been “promoted and in which Baltasar Garzón may be involved for his professional practice as a lawyer.”
According to that Fiscal Council García Ortiz, despite the complaints of the discrepant vowels there were “enough elements of judgment to make a decision”, so after his refusal to vote he concluded in the council “once understood that the vote is favorable” before the five votes supporting the appointment of Delgado (including that of the Attorney General) “and seven not pronounced.” However, the recurring association insists that “there is no vote on incompatibility.”
“Shocking” manifestations by García Ortiz
In addition, according to the AF these manifestations of García Ortiz “are shocking” since “the designation of Dolores Delgado, which was carried out through a procedure that obviated” one of the essential requirements for the appointment “,” not sufficiently completed by the compatibility file “was not completed.
The appeal affects that the designation of Delgado has violated the fundamental right to professional promotion under conditions of equality because the Internal Regime Regulation of the Fiscal Council forces the Fiscal Inspection to provide the vowels “the background and reports necessary for the documentation and foundation of the proposals and deliberations.” In this case, he says, he had to make available to the directors “all the relevant information” so that he could “deliberate and make the decision.” And although the file was initiated, he explained, the chief prosecutor of the inspection “did not carry out any investigation work”, limiting himself to carrying out some proceedings “in a notoriously insufficient way”, which was reflected in an “absolute lack of material content of the file.” A file that in any case, denounced, referred to the vowels only two days before the celebration of the Fiscal Council.
The AF complains that García Ortiz attributed the competence to decide whether the Fiscal Inspection file was sufficient or not, “subtracting its competence to the Fiscal Council.” “He did not vote the concurrence or not of the cause of incompatibility -denounces the resource -instead, he decided on his own that these seven vowels abstained and that the other five voted in favor of compatibility.” But that vote, “according to the text of the minutes of the meeting or with the video, did not happen at any time,” they reiterate.
The candidates were not reported
Nor were they reported, they regret, about the candidates for the position. “The appointment of the candidate was not submitted to the Fiscal Council,” they show. “They did not report the seven members who opposed the decision or the other five; they did not report any of the three candidates,” says the AF, for which “one of the essential requirements for the appointment is missing.”
However, without the vote of these seven vowels, the attorney general concluded that the cause of prohibition that states article 58 of the Organic Statute of the Fiscal Ministry did not attend in his predecessor, “having no spouse any position or intervention in the Fibgar Foundation, a non -profit entity whose activity does not have a commercial or business nature or hinders the impartial exercise of the function of the function of the function” by the function of the function of the function. Nor did he appreciate any incompatibility in the lawyer of the former national audience.
Article 58 of the EOMF prevents the position of the prosecutor of the Chamber, the highest category of the career, when in that same prosecutor’s office “usually” as a lawyer his spouse, except in the case of territorial constituencies of more than half a million inhabitants “without prejudice to the duty of abstention where appropriate.” But although this exception is fulfilled in the case of Garzón, a collegiate in Madrid, the Association of Prosecutors emphasizes that “there is only one prosecutor in the Prosecutor’s Office of Human Rights and Democratic Memory” so “there is no possibility of abstention.” Consequently, he defends that “despite the fact that the constituency is greater than 500,000 inhabitants, if we attend to the purpose of the norm, incudority occurs unquestion.”
The AF claims to the Supreme to annul that second appointment and that forces the Fiscal Council again to meet, after “carrying out new investigation proceedings”, to vote on the existence or not of that cause of incompatibility, informing about the candidates who opt for the Plaza de Prosecutor of Democratic Memory.