The State Attorney General, Alvaro Garcia Ortiz, is still in the eye of the hurricane. This Wednesday it emerged that has recused all the magistrates of the Supreme Court who have to decide on his appointment and, therefore, on whether or not he should continue to be the head of the Public Ministry. García Ortiz considers that these judges should step aside because they are the same ones who already said that he had acted with a “diversion of power” by proposing Dolores Delgado as a togada prosecutor.
Fiscal sources report that the attorney general has filed an incident of recusal against the five magistrates of the Fourth Section of the Third Chamber (Administrative Litigation), who have pending resolution of an appeal from the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF) against their appointment as head of the State Attorney General’s Office.
Is about the same judges who last November issued a ruling that overturned Delgado’s appointment and, therefore, the attorney general understands that they would already be contaminated by that procedure to now decide on their continuity at the head of the Public Ministry. Furthermore, these four judges are the ones who have just annulled the appointment of Delgado as Chamber Prosecutor of the Office of the Prosecutor for Human Rights and Democratic Memory. This happens because the Fourth Section is the one that is responsible for matters related to personnel or fundamental rights.
They might not be objective
In his recusal incident, García Ortiz understands that these magistrates may not be objective to determine his continuity or not at the head of the institution, once the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) considered him “suitable” for the position precisely due to, among other issues, that Supreme Court ruling. In fact, tax sources consulted by Ep add that García Ortiz has not challenged the fifth judge who currently makes up said section because she did not participate in the deliberation and ruling regarding Delgado’s appointment.
In addition to these reasons, García Ortiz adds references such as the case of magistrate José Luis Requero, who the day after that ruling on Delgado’s promotion signed an article in The reason in which he said that “it is enough to look at what is already a Constitutional Court and a State Attorney General’s Office grieving“add sources cited by EFE.
For this reason, the head of the Public Ministry requests that his case be reviewed by other magistrates who do not have previous rulings or references against himas he understands that it does now happen with this section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber.
The Room of 61
The resolution corresponds to the so-called Chamber of 61, a special room of the Supreme Court whose name comes from article 61 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary, which includes its creation. Among its powers is that of studying, as the law itself says, “incidents of recusal of the president of the Supreme Court or the presidents of Chambers, or of more than two magistrates of a Chamber”, as is the case in this same case.
With the president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, at the head, The Chamber of 61 is made up of each of the presidents of the five chambers of the high court and by the oldest and most modern magistrate of each of them.
The APIF filed a contentious administrative appeal in the Supreme Court against the appointment of García Ortiz, considering that his actions and his “partiality” in favor of the Government show that his appointment does not comply with the law.
García Ortiz, they denounce, “has shown itself blatantly partial in its support for the Government, at the same time that it has omitted any obligation due to the Institution, its prosecutors and disrespecting the Fiscal Council by appropriating any of its decision-making powers.”
Therefore they consider that “He has neither the mood, nor the attitude, nor the character.nor the conviction to be an Attorney General of the State and not of the Government.”
