The plenary session of the Constitutional Court has supported, by seven votes in favor against four against, the former Canarian leader of Podemos Alberto Rodríguez for the disqualification sentence set by the Supreme Court, as court sources confirm to La Vanguardia.
The Supreme Court convicted Rodríguez for kicking a police officer at a demonstration. The sentence was light, of imprisonment replaceable with a fine, but the disqualification remained fixed, which forced the Congress of Deputies to disqualify him and make him lose his deputy record.
Now, the TC agrees with him and considers that that sentence was disproportionate. The text dictates that the Supreme Court violated the principle of criminal legality, understanding that the sanction of a fine (as a substitute for a prison sentence) cannot carry with it the accessory of disqualification, which would mean annulling the withdrawal of the seat.
The Supreme Court sentenced Rodríguez to one month and fifteen days in prison when he was brought before this court as a Congressman, which he replaced with a fine of 540 euros and an accessory penalty of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage during the time of the sentence, 45 days.
After this conviction, the then president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, informed Rodríguez of the loss of his status as a deputy, as she said the Supreme Court required.
Now the Constitutional Court states in its ruling that since the prison sentence is less than three months, it necessarily went from prison to a fine. And, therefore, the disqualification could not be established because it cannot be an accessory to a fine.
The Supreme Court, on the contrary, understood that the penalty was imprisonment, although it was replaced by a fine, and, therefore, disqualification should be established.
This point was key because this disqualification was what forced the Congress of Deputies to withdraw his seat as a deputy. This withdrawal of the seat was also appealed before the TC, which has pending resolution, and according to legal sources it could be studied at the end of this month.
The TC understands that no constitutional reproach can be made to the Supreme Court since it relied on legal criteria to interpret the norm in this way, “fully admitted and recognized by the legal community.”
However, the body considers that the law can be interpreted differently. It explains that in this context of “interpretive ambiguity” it is disproportionate to maintain the accessory penalty of disqualification in a sentence that, being less than three months, requires replacing it with a fine. According to the ruling, it causes a “disproportionate sacrifice that produces a patently useless waste of coercion.”
Therefore, the disqualification is annulled from the sentence, maintaining only the prison sentence replaced by a fine. The retroaction of actions in the criminal process is not agreed, since the prison sentence was effectively replaced by the fine, which has already been paid, and the accessory of disqualification has already been fully served without any other effect having been derived. of its fulfillment.
However, the guarantee body validates Rodríguez’s conviction and considers that there is sufficient evidence to prove that he was at the demonstration and that he was indeed the author of kicking an agent. The former leader of Podemos alleged the violation of the right to the presumption of innocence because the evidence presented was insufficient to declare him the author of the events.
The court argues that, from the perspective of external control that corresponds to it, the violation of this right is not appreciated, since its authorship was considered proven based on the victim’s statement. Nor does he consider that his right to assembly has been violated.
On the other hand, in today’s plenary session, the guarantee body has admitted for processing the appeal presented by the PSOE against the recent reform promoted by the PP in the Senate to delay the parliamentary processing of the amnesty law proposal.
As explained by the TC, the reform allows the Senate Board to decide autonomously about the urgent processing of law proposals, even when they have been processed by the emergency procedure in the Congress of Deputies.
