The harsh words spoken by the Junts per Catalunya deputy in the Parliament have outraged the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Catalonia. The controversy broke out in a session last Thursday in the Justice Commission of the Catalan Chamber in which the Superior Prosecutor of Catalonia, Francisco Bañeres and the lieutenant prosecutor, Pedro Ariche, presented the report of the Prosecutor’s Office to the deputies. In his turn to speak, the representative of Junts, Joaquim Jubert, welcomed Bañeres but said: “his assistant, prosecutor Ariche, who has carried out actions far from the equanimity and defense of the presumption of innocence that would be desirable of a public servant, also with respect to some members of this House”. The prosecutor Pedro Ariche has been in charge of prosecuting the case in trials related to the process, such as that of the former Minister of the Interior, Miquel Buch, and that of the sovereignist members of the Parliament Board chaired by Carme Forcadell.
These attacks have unleashed a wave of indignation in the Prosecutor’s Office, which this Tuesday urgently met the Board of Prosecutors to issue a statement of support for Ariche and defend the actions of the Public Ministry in all cases related to the independence process. In the statement, the Board of Prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office of Catalonia expresses “its full support for the professional actions of Lieutenant Prosecutor Ariche, as well as that of all the members of the various Prosecutor’s Offices in the judicial procedures derived from the so-called process, its respect for the judicial resolutions that were issued in defense of the rule of law, and its absolute rejection of any type of interference with the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, in addition to a “lack of courtesy and institutional respect”, Jubert’s words constitute “an unjustified attack against the work of judges and prosecutors by those who hold public office, with the unequivocal intention of generating against them a current of negative opinion among citizens”. The attack by the Junts deputy reveals, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, “a profound lack of knowledge of how the Public Prosecutor’s Office works internally and recalls that its position is “collegial and democratic” and that it has been endorsed “not only by the Superior Prosecutor of Catalonia but by the Attorney General of Catalonia himself. State through its technical bodies”.
The Prosecutors’ associations have also issued statements of support for Pedro Ariche, defending his actions. “We consider the unjustified attack on judges and prosecutors by those who hold public office with the sole purpose of creating confusion among citizens to be extremely serious in a democratic State governed by the rule of law in which institutional respect and the separation of powers must prevail. “said the Association of Prosecutors. Along the same lines, the Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF) expressed its “firm rejection” of Jubert’s words, which they understand “can only be interpreted as a direct attack on the legal and constitutional function of a prosecutor.” And they add that “when from a political position they attack a prosecutor for the way in which he/she exercises his/her jurisdictional function, they not only attack him/her, not even the more than 2,700 prosecutors in Spain, but the rule of law.” as a whole”.
