The Supreme Court has clarified that the Seville court must report on eight of the nine pardons that the senior officials of the Andalusian junta had requested from the Ministry of Justice in the ERE case. On January 16, the Supreme Court sent an order to the Sevillian court to clarify that it is the judges of the Andalusian capital who must tell the government, based on their legal criteria, whether to pardon former President José Antonio Griñán and seven people or not other former senior officials of the Board.
The Supreme Court hands the ball to the Sevillian court since its judgment in the fraudulent ERE case only modified the judgment of the former General Director of Labor of the Board of Directors Juan Márquez and upheld the judgments made by the court in the first instance. That is, the court, after consulting with the anti-corruption prosecutor's office, will tell the government whether it believes it should pardon the former senior Andalusian officials. According to the legal reports, the executive will decide on the pardon requested more than a year ago by nine former Socialist executive officials.
The First Chamber of the Court of Seville, which imposed the sentences in this case in November 2019, already opened the files for each case last year, but there were legal doubts whether to decide on Juan Márquez since the Supreme Court reduced his sentence had. seven to three years in prison. Márquez succeeded Javier Guerrero as head of the General Directorate of Labor of the Administrative Board, which handled the files relating to subsidies for the ERE. Now the Supreme Court has made it clear that in the case of the former Labor director general, its judges will consider and decide, but in the other eight cases, including Griñán, it will be the judges of Seville. The court sent Márquez's pardon to the Supreme Court after requesting it twice in December and January.
Based on the criteria of its eight files, the court's judges five days ago asked the anti-corruption agency to submit its legal report on the pardons and comment on the matter later. The process for deciding on pardons was initiated by the Ministry of Justice last October. Along with Griñán, former city councilors Francisco Vallejo, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, José Antonio Viera and Antonio Fernández, as well as former high-ranking officials Agustín Barberá, Miguel Ángel Serrano, Juan Márquez and Jesús María Rodríguez, had asked for the measure of mercy. All except the former Andalusian president, who is suffering from cancer, and the former general manager Juan Márquez, whose sentence was reduced by the Supreme Court ruling, have all gone to prison.
The Seville court will gather information about the convicted defendants' criminal records, the part of the sentence they have served and the behavior they had as inmates. In addition to the fight against corruption, the Andalusian body can decide on the pardon, since it concerns an administration damaged by the embezzlement committed by the convict.
The procedure for the requested pardon, which usually lasts between one and two years, takes place in parallel with the convict's appeal to the Constitutional Court to change the Supreme Court's ruling.
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