The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the promotion of former Attorney General Dolores Delgado to court prosecutor has sparked anger among progressive prosecutors. The Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF), to which Delgado belongs and to which the current Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz was a member before reaching this position, considers that the sentence imposed this Tuesday by the Disputes and Administrative Chamber “cancels the verdict” . The freedom of the Director of Public Prosecutions to make appointments is restricted and in this way “restricts the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor’s Office”.
The Supreme Court’s decision, issued unanimously by five justices of varying sensibilities, contains sharp criticism of García Ortiz’s actions, which they attribute to a “diversion of power.” The judges consider that the Attorney General’s motivation in proposing Delgado as head of Togada’s public prosecutor’s office – the military one – was to secure him a promotion and that he thereby abdicated his duty to fill the vacancies in the To fill the prosecutor’s office “substantially in line with the performance criterion.” After leaving the position of attorney general of the state in July 2022, Delgado returned to her position as a simple prosecutor at the National Court, but in September of the same year, García Ortiz beat her as court prosecutor of the Togada prosecutor’s office before office, an appointment which he approved. The Council of Ministers.
Delgado is no longer a prosecutor at the military court, having been appointed prosecutor at the Court of Human Rights and Democratic Remembrance in June. However, this last appointment was possible because Delgado already held the highest category. Since that first promotion was canceled, the prosecution must now examine whether this affects his current goal. Tax sources assure that the Supreme Court decision has no impact on her current position as head of the Democratic Memory prosecutor’s office, but legal sources indicate that it does. Delgado has announced in statements to SER that he will “challenge the verdict before the Constitutional Court,” which he considers “unfair.”
In deciding whether to enforce the sentence, progressive prosecutors expressed in a statement this Wednesday that they disagree with the arguments on which the Supreme Court’s decision is based. The UPF contends that the now-cancelled appointment was based on the Attorney General’s “extensive and reasoned” proposal, which cited Delgado’s “extensive resume and extensive experience,” which “along with his profound knowledge of the criminal justice system, both institutional and substantive.” in organizational and administrative terms” was “the key” to the position of Chamber Prosecutor of the Robed Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court.
The prosecution’s proposal referred in great detail to Delgado’s experience during her almost 30-year career in such complex matters as organized crime, the fight against terrorism and its financing, drug trafficking or money laundering, as well as her work for more than 13 years as Public prosecutor in the public prosecutor’s office of the regional court as a coordinator against jihadist terrorism.
“We cannot understand that our colleague’s CV, despite being included in the proposal in such detail and reason, was not evaluated or even mentioned by the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court,” complain the progressive prosecutors. who accuse the Supreme Court of the fact that the judgment “does not contain any assessment of the extensive merits that the proposed candidate had to bring to the table to make her worthy of the position”, the courtroom prosecutor of the Togada Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court.
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The UPF warns that the arguments on which the Supreme Court bases its decision and the mention of “diversion of power” are based on the statements made by García Ortiz “in the exercise of his autonomy” about the convenience of attorneys general of persons not of the highest career category are promoted when they leave office. Above all, affirms the progressive association, when “the merits and performance are more than sufficient for the exercise of the office”. “As an example, it is enough to recall that the same thing was done with the former Attorney General María José Segarra, this argument being then supported by the entire Finance Council.”
“We have been concerned about the basis for this ruling since the GRECO report [Grupo de Estados contra la Corrupción] “The President of 2021 very positively appreciated the same argument that is now despised as a way to strengthen the autonomy of the figure of the Attorney General,” he reminds the UPF, which considers that Delgado “under the pretext of “Understated” that the intention was not to assert her merits and abilities, a problem that becomes clear when reading the colleague’s CV.
The UPF considers that the Supreme Court is repeating its decision by annulling a discretionary appointment of the Attorney General, referring to the case of Eduardo Esteban, the prosecutor of the Juvenile Court, whose appointment the Supreme Court has twice annulled. “We are facing a change that is not based on the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, where merit and capacity and judicial work seem to be insufficient in the face of other demands that do not benefit tax careers and public service.” “We do that every day “, conclude the progressive prosecutors.
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