The attorney general rules out resigning despite the Senate's “court of honor”

The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, is not going to give in to the pressures to which he has been subjected since he took office in August 2022, replacing Dolores Delgado, and for this reason he rules out resigning despite the offensive that has taken place. suffered in recent days from various fronts and in which he sees the PP behind it.

This was stated yesterday in Ser after being asked about the consequences for him of the disapproval that the Senate approved on Wednesday, with an absolute majority of the PP. García considers that both the Upper House and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) – which considered him unsuitable for the position – have subjected him to a “court of honor.”

In his opinion, the Senate made a “conception error” by considering him a “political actor.” “The attorney general cannot be dismissed by the Government, he is not subject to the political control of the Senate because he is not part of the Government,” he clarified.

For the PP, the conservative associations of prosecutors and the conservative bloc of the governing body of judges, García acts at the dictate of the Executive, without real independence. The suspicions about him come from his position as number two in the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) when Delgado was in charge, appointed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, just after leaving her position as Minister of Justice, a transition that was seen as an attempt by the Executive to control the public ministry. Throughout that time, García Ortiz was Delgado’s right-hand man, with whom she had shared space in the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF).

After Delgado’s resignation for personal reasons, the Government opted for the continuity of his work and appointed García as his replacement. Delgado had been the target of multiple criticisms during his time at the FGE, which were later assumed by his successor.

It has hurt both Delgado and García that the advisory body of the FGE, the Fiscal Council, is currently made up of a conservative majority, which has not given them respite in their appointment policy and which has gone to court to stop their actions. feet in the promotion as courtroom prosecutors to members closer to the UPF.

García has also encountered opposition from the Supreme Court (TS), which has even ruled in a ruling that he incurred a “deviation of power” by promoting Delgado in category so that he could go from courtroom prosecutor to the High Court. and thus not have to return to his position as prosecutor of the National Court.

The Supreme Court has also overturned García’s two attempts to make Delgado a courtroom prosecutor – first as a Military prosecutor and then as a Democratic Memory prosecutor.

After the elections of July 23, the CGPJ managed, thanks to its conservative majority, to make a report against García’s suitability when the Government announced that it was again proposing him as attorney general. Among other things, the members alleged the TS ruling to justify their misuse of the institution. It was the first time that the body of judges did not give its endorsement for this position. However, this report, being non-binding, did not affect the appointment.

Socialist sources then criticized that the CGPJ’s decision was the result of internal tension due to the interim situation of the body that has been in place since December 2018 due to the PP’s blockade of its renewal.

García Ortiz is very careful about criticizing judicial resolutions, although he did mention yesterday in the interview that “changing dynamics in structures as conservative as the fiscal career, as justice is in this country, we knew it had a cost.”

One of the most combative associations of prosecutors with the current attorney general, the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF), appealed to the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court against the appointment of García last year, despite the contrary report from the Supreme Court. CGPJ. The magistrates who must resolve it are the same ones who ruled that there had been a misuse of power to promote Delgado.

Although he refrains from criticizing the resolutions of the High Court, which he maintains maintains a different criterion than his, he has requested the recusal of the magistrates who must study this last appeal, among other things because one of them, José Luis Requero, had stated in an article that both García and the Constitutional Court were “sorry.”

And to all this is added a final blow to the attorney general, after the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid decided to admit for processing a complaint filed by the partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso against the chief prosecutor of Madrid and the prosecutor investigating him for tax fraud for disseminating a press release to clarify an “intentional hoax”, promoted by the Madrid president’s cabinet against the Prosecutor’s Office. García Ortiz has defended that the note did not provide confidential data, but rather intended to deny false information, in addition to assuming responsibility.