The Constitutional Court ended its plenary session this Thursday without completing the deliberation of the request for protection of the former Podemos deputy Alberto Rodríguez against the ruling of the Supreme Court that convicted him in 2021 of the crime of attacking an official of the authority. Seven judges have spoken and the intervention of another four is missing, which will take place later in another plenary session. The debate that has begun has confirmed that there are different points of view on the core of the matter, namely on the question of whether the sentence imposed by the Supreme Court on Rodríguez for kicking a police officer during a demonstration is one and a half months in prison, which later was replaced by a fine and exclusion – was proportionate or not. This criminal conviction led to Podemos’s then number three being stripped of his seat.
Court sources confirm that the Constitutional Court will ultimately grant protection to the former MP, considering that his fundamental rights have been violated. But deliberations have been suspended and the rapporteur for the case, María Luisa Segoviano, has announced that she will amend some aspects of her draft resolution in order to achieve the greatest possible consensus. According to these sources, the new presentation will not focus on the argument of the lack of proportionality of the punishment, but on the violation of the principle of criminal lawfulness: thus, it is emphasized that if the prison sentence was replaced by a fine, the punishment should not have been imposed. Disqualification as a punishment accompanied by imprisonment.
It was the existence of this disqualification penalty that later led to Rodríguez losing his seat. This decision, officially taken by the President of the House of Representatives, Meritxell Batet, was the subject of a second challenge by Rodríguez before the Constitutional Court, although concrete consultation on this aspect has not yet begun.
The Constitutional Court had planned to decide Rodríguez’s two appeals before the summer, but the political calendar delayed the deliberations: the Guarantee Authority did not want the ruling to coincide with the electoral campaigns, first with the local and regional elections in May and then with the Elections generals in July. In any case, for months now, following the renewal of the Constitutional Court with a new progressive majority in January, there has been a belief within the court that the ruling will protect Alberto Rodríguez.
The former Podemos MP, who broke with the party in October 2021, took part in the parliamentary elections last July with a new formation, Proyecto Drago, integrated into the Sumar platform, but did not win a seat.
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