The acting Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, said this Monday that the Ministry is processing requests for pardon for the former president of Andalusia José Antonio Griñán and others convicted in the ERE case “like everyone else.”
Pilar Llop made these statements to journalists after inaugurating the seminar on Public Justice Service in Times of Change organized by the Ministry within the framework of the Permanent Module of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).
“The pardons and in this case that of Griñán are processed like all others, they have been given the same course as everyone else, now they are in the judicial phase and their ordinary processing will also continue,” assured the head of Justice.
Pilar Llop has clarified that “when the Government is in office, pardons cannot be granted but they are processed just like everyone else, and these are in the processing phase like any other.”
In this regard, the Court of Seville has asked the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to rule on the processing of the pardons. After receiving the request for pardon from the Division of Pardon Rights and other rights of the Ministry of Justice, the first section of the Seville Court has issued nine rulings on Griñán, four former councilors and four other former senior officials of the Board of Andalusia.
In the rulings, provided to the media by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia and issued on September 28, the Court asks that those affected rule on “their agreement or disagreement with the granting of the pardon” and that the Prosecutor’s Office issue the mandatory report in these cases.
In the case of the ERE, seven former high-ranking officials are in jail, including four former counselors: Carmen Martínez Aguayo, who was head of the Treasury; José Antonio Viera, who was Employment Counselor and is in third grade due to illness; Francisco Vallejo, former Minister of Innovation, and Antonio Fernández, former Minister of Employment.
Also in prison are the former Vice Minister of Employment Agustín Barberá, the former Vice Minister of Innovation Jeúss María Rodríguez Román and the former general director of the IDEA agency Miguel Ángel Serrano
Griñán, sentenced to six years in prison, did not go to prison because the coroner advised against it due to the prostate cancer he suffers from.
The former general director of Labor Juan Márquez did not go to prison either because the Court suspended his entry until the pardon he requested was processed, to which the Sevillian judicial body agreed because his sentence was three years in prison.
On September 26, the Constitutional Court refused to release the former senior officials of the Board sentenced by the ERE to prison sentences while the merits of their amparo appeals are resolved.
