The lawsuit before the National Court over the gifts received by Pedro Sánchez throughout his Presidency of the Government is already being heard for sentencing. Once the plaintiff’s statements regarding the details and destination of these presents have been provided, the lawyer Guillermo Rocafort, the State Attorney’s Office considers that “it is appropriate to dismiss an appeal presented in terms that exceed its purpose, (…), without converting it into a kind of general cause”. A response similar to the one given by Begoña Gómez’s lawyer when requesting the file of the case against the wife of the President of the Government when complaining about a “universal research.” And in the words of her lawyer, Antonio Camacho, and even the Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, the aforementioned is suffering a «prospective research (that which begins in an indeterminate manner in search of possible criminal conduct without a minimum of specificity and well-founded suspicions)outlawed in a democratic procedural system».
Regarding the gifts object of this dispute, the State’s lawyer adds in the written conclusions that the plaintiff “refers to information that is not in the possession of the Administration”so attending to it would require “a prior action of reworking” that it is not going to undertake – it says that they are “prohibited by Article 13 of the Transparency Law” – “to satisfy the claim of the plaintiff to be informed of the possibility of enjoying the gifts” or of “the supervision by of the General Directorate of State Heritage to guarantee” its “integrity and maintenance.”
In the same way, he states, “a prior action to rework the communication to the Tax Agency for the purposes of tax returns and taxation would be required” and “the existence of insurance for damage or loss for the aforementioned assets”, since “they refer to “to process a procedure that has not yet begun.” And this is because “the institutional gifts made to the Presidency of the Government are incorporated into the Patrimony of the General Administration of the State through a procedure that begins with the cessation of office.”
The State Attorney’s Office claims not to have the details of the gifts, but “that is not true,” in the opinion of the claimant, because “they have recognized” that they make “simple notes” of the gifts that arrive to the president, to which qualifies as “personal evaluations of an official without evaluation powers”an action that “has only internal effectiveness” and that “will not be incorporated into the final decision,” according to the State lawyer.
The protocol between the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture and the Department of Technical and Legal Coordination of the Presidency of the Government – signed “during the lawsuit and after the claim” by Guillermo Rocafort –, “evidence” for the lawyer “that before there was no control and on the other hand It is an excuse to try to prove in court that the treatment of these gifts is now regulatedthat is, subject to rules that did not exist,” says the interested party. The State lawyer says that this protocol includes the examination “of the collection of institutional assets and gifts of the Presidency of the Government, stored in the La Moncloa complex”, so “It is not understood, therefore, how the plaintiff concludes that this agreement is not applicable to the gifts obtained by the current President of the Government.”
The State Attorney’s Office maintains its position that it should be at the end of Pedro Sánchez’s term when his gifts are transferred to State Heritage, which in Rocafort’s opinion would not be in accordance with the Law, since The law obliges them to be inventoried immediately as well as to transfer them to State Heritage. when they are made, “which is what Casa Real does with the gifts it receives.”
Notwithstanding the above, taking advantage of the fact that there is an agreement to document these gifts with Fine Arts, Guillermo Rocafort has requested from the Ministry of Culture, through the Transparency Law, the details of all the goods gifted to Pedro Sánchez so far and inventoried, “in order to be able to certify whether this agreement is a dead letter or whether some activity is really being carried out in that sense.” Said agreement, in Rocafort’s opinion, goes against the Law because it does not raise exceptions, as is mandatory for everyone.
Regarding the inventory, the Government’s response incurs a contradiction. He claims not to have any relationship with gifts, while acknowledging that the objects received by the president “they require prior classification, review and assessment” to then develop an administrative file that will take place when he leaves office. That is, when Sánchez leaves, the subsequent Executive will have to inventory the gifts received while he was president.
In the Transparency Law there is no express condition that establishes the impossibility of providing this information at specific times or deadlines. The regulations state that senior officials of the Administration will not accept gifts “for themselves” that exceed “habitual, social or courtesy uses”. And if they are of greater institutional relevance, they will be incorporated into the assets of the Public Administration.
Among the last presents received by Sánchez is that of the president of Aragón, Jorge Azcón, who He presented his counterpart from the central government with three ribbons of the Virgin of Pilar. That of Spain, that of Aragon and that of Cachirulo for which hundreds or thousands of Zaragoza residents queued in front of the Basilica.