ABC Editorial: García Ortiz breaks the Prosecutor’s Office

The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, only had one opportunity to end his mandate with a minimum of dignity and he has wasted it. When the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court agrees to investigate the highest authority of the Public Ministry for objective indications of a crime, it is not the time to begin to discuss whether these indications are solid or not, but to assume that, objectively, it is not possible in such cases. conditions to direct the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office. On the contrary, García Ortiz has responded to the Supreme Court’s decision with a counter-campaign of self-affirmation that further disqualifies him from continuing to head the Attorney General’s Office. His first response was a tailor-made interview on public television in which he launched a message that was unprecedented not only in a state attorney general, but in a mere public official: “If I wanted to harm a certain political spectrum, I have information from leftover, which, of course, I will never use. This phrase is more typical of the sewers of a party embarked on a public hunt for judges and journalists than of one who is entrusted by the Constitution to defend legality, public interest and judicial independence. If García Ortiz has news of criminal acts from whatever “political spectrum”, his obligation is to report them as soon as possible to the competent court. And if you are not going to make use of that information because it is not criminal, then you have to keep quiet, because you have known it due to your position, although later you will complain about being investigated for revealing secrets. The reasons for his resignation are reinforced, because, in addition to signs of crimes, he is a language.

García Ortiz wanted to send a message typical of sectarian thuggery. You have information that he’s not going to use. Not him, but the Supreme Court suspects that he often uses friendly means to do this job. Never has a State Attorney General’s Office fallen so low, in such a short time, and its deterioration is further outlined by the contrast with the pacification of the General Council of the Judiciary, achieved as soon as the judges have emancipated themselves from partisan indications. Now, it is the turn of a Prosecutor’s Office unfairly mistreated by its head.

García Ortiz’s second initiative was to bring together the Board of Court Prosecutors yesterday, although this body was created to provide collegiate advice to the attorney general on technical matters. However, García Ortiz has used that Board to create the alibi of institutional support for his continuity, which is just that, a prefabricated and, furthermore, failed alibi. Only if practically unanimous support is achieved is it worth risking with a call like this, but the only thing that García Ortiz achieved is that the internal division of the Board of Court Prosecutors became clear. Obviously he received explicit reinforcement from those who owe him his place at that table, even accompanying that support with reckless criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision. Provoking the fracture of the leadership of the Prosecutor’s Office is a pyrrhic victory, if it could be interpreted as a victory, because, in practice, there were many fewer who supported him than those who, by word or with their silence, denied him your support.

The development of the judicial investigation is not written, but what is already consolidated is the toxic imprint of sanchismo in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, for the sole reason of shielding the businesses in La Moncloa from the scrutiny of the law.