Conservative prosecutors have taken another step this Monday in the conflict they maintain with the state attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz. The Association of Prosecutors (AF), the majority of the career, has announced that it is leaving the work table established a month ago to prepare a new Organic Statute of the Prosecutor’s Office, necessary to be able to assume the powers that the new Law will grant them. of Criminal Procedure (Lecrim), a project that has been stalled for years that the Government wants to accelerate and that will leave the investigation of criminal cases in the hands of prosecutors. The AF justifies its sit-in on García Ortiz in statements made by him last week in which he pointed out that some associations share objectives with some political parties.
“Given the statements made in the media by the State Attorney General who questions the independent and professional actions of the associations of judges and prosecutors, accusing them of being politicized and not respecting the work carried out in them, the Association of Prosecutors considers that the ideal and necessary framework to continue the joint associative work for the preparation of a new Organic Statute of the Prosecutor’s Office has been broken and, consequently, says the AF in a statement sent to the media. The other conservative association of prosecutors, the Independent Association of Prosecutors (APIF), had already left the working table a few weeks ago due to disagreements with the attorney general, so, after the departure of the AF, only the Progressive Association of Prosecutors (UPF), which represents around 250 of the more than 2,700 members of the career.
The movement of the two conservative prosecutors’ associations represents a kind of boycott of the new Lecrim, one of the largest legal reforms designed in recent years and that will imply a turnaround in the criminal process. The promotion of this norm is a historical demand of the entire career and the AF itself participated, three years ago, in the report prepared by the Fiscal Council on the draft Government law. That opinion supported reforming the Lecrim so that the investigation of criminal cases would be assumed by prosecutors, but questioned key aspects of the text. One of the objections was that the new functions that the law will attribute to the public ministry require a reform of the Organic Statute of the Fiscal Ministry to provide more autonomy to this institution, and that was precisely the task on which the working table that the conservative prosecutors have now abandoned is focused.
Although both the AF and the APIF have historically demanded the reform of the Lecrim, in recent weeks prosecutors of these associations, head-on in confrontation with the attorney general, have suggested that it was not the ideal time to address this change. However, when García Ortiz called the three associations at the beginning of April to ask them to take charge of drafting the new Statute, they accepted the assignment, but from the beginning prosecutors from the conservative sector were against collaborating with García Ortiz to carry out that work. Barely a month later, the two associations facing the attorney general have withdrawn from the project.
The AF supports its decision on statements made last week by the head of the Public Ministry in an interview on Cadena Ser, after the Supreme Court annulled the appointment of Dolores Delgado as prosecutor of the Democratic Memory room and the Senate , where the PP has an absolute majority, will fail the attorney general. “Among corporate elements within the judicial and prosecutorial associations there are identical objectives as those of certain political parties,” said García Ortiz, statements that the AF describes as “serious and unacceptable insinuations” that call into question “professionalism and independence.” of the prosecutors of this association.
Sources from the Prosecutor’s Office admit that the reform of the Statute is “essential” to be able to apply the Lecrim, a norm whose approval has no date, but which the Minister of Justice, Felix Bolaños, has proposed to unblock in the coming months. These sources indicate that the Prosecutor’s Office, despite the abandonment of two of the three associations, will continue with the work to reform the Statute because they benefit the entire career and it is a “historic demand.” García Ortiz’s entourage also warns that this reform transcends the current attorney general, since the full application of the law, which represents a change in the criminal process, is expected to last up to six years once it is approved. .
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