The Constitutional Court annuls part of the sentence that led to the loss of Alberto Rodríguez's seat

The Constitutional Court has partially annulled the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court in 2021 and which, in the end, meant the loss of the seat for the then Podemos deputy Alberto Rodríguez, as court sources announced this Tuesday and the body later confirmed. in a press release. The guarantee body has considered that the Supreme Court's ruling should not have included the initial imposition of a prison sentence for Rodríguez – a month and a half in jail for attacking a police officer during a demonstration – but should only mention the penalty of a fine with that the court itself finally replaced prison. If the sentence had not included a sentence of “prison” but rather a “fine”, the leader of Podemos would have been able to keep his seat in Congress, since the decision of the then president of the Chamber, Meritxell Batet, to deny him his discharge as a deputy derived from the formal existence of that prison sentence.

The sentence has been approved by seven votes to four. The magistrates of the progressive sector voted in favor and those of the conservative sector voted against. Judge Ramón Sáez, from the first of these blocks, has announced a concurrent vote, that is, in agreement with the majority ruling but with different arguments. And the members of the conservative sector—Ricardo Enríquez, Enrique Arnaldo, Concepción Espejel and César Tolosa—have signed a dissenting vote (contrary to the ruling), as they consider, as did the Prosecutor's Office, that Alberto's request for protection should have been dismissed. Rodriguez. The magistrate of the progressive sector María Luisa Segoviano has been the speaker of the sentence.

The decision of the Presidency of Congress to withdraw Rodríguez's seat, as a consequence of that Supreme Court conviction in 2021, was also appealed by Rodríguez before the Constitutional Court and will be the subject of a second ruling, in an upcoming plenary session. The court will probably then confirm that, once the initial conviction of the Supreme Court has been partially annulled, the challenge against the loss of the seat has lost its purpose and does not require a resolution.

Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos – a party from which Rodríguez left at the end of 2021 and with which he ended up in conflict – stated this Tuesday that that sentence was “a case of lawfare [persecución judicial por motivos políticos] of a book.” “Alberto Rodríguez was stripped of his seat in Congress for being from Podemos,” he wrote on the social network During the previous legislature we maintained that a disqualification sentence for a public position obtained after the events that were tried when there was no prison sentence was not appropriate at all. The prison was replaced by a fine, which meant that legally the sentence of disqualification was not possible.” Santiago has especially criticized Meritxell Batet's decision to withdraw Rodríguez's deputy status.

No practical effects

The Constitutional Court has focused its analysis of the case on the content of the operative part of the Supreme Court's ruling, that is, in its ruling, in which it considers that the defendant's sentence to a prison sentence should not have appeared. The Supreme Court ruling in 2021 established Rodríguez's sentence as follows: “One month and 15 days in prison, with the accessory of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage during the time of the sentence. The prison sentence is replaced by a 90-day fine with a daily fee of 6 euros.” The Constitutional Court now concludes that this formula violated the deputy's right to the principle of “criminal legality”, and that the sentence should have mentioned “only” that the penalty imposed was a “90-day fine with a daily fee of 6 euros.” The retroactive application is not agreed upon, because the prison sentence was effectively replaced by the fine, which has already been paid, and the accessory sentence of disqualification “has already been fully served.”

Alberto Rodríguez's appeal has been deliberated in two plenary sessions and many previous conversations. The majority justices had two objectives, according to court sources. On the one hand, make it clear that the sentence imposed by the Supreme Court had disproportionate consequences. And also avoid reproaching the former president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, who was the one who ultimately decided to withdraw the Podemos deputy's seat, because she acted based on a sentence that is now considered unduly imposed.

The first draft of the sentence focused on the disproportion between the crime committed – kicking a police officer, with no consequences – and the loss of the seat. But they wanted to avoid leaving the image of a Constitutional Court reproaching the Supreme Court for having gone too far, for having been excessively rigorous. That is why the first draft was not approved, and it was decided to focus the sentence on a problem of criminal legality, that is, the interpretation of what should have been included in the Supreme Court ruling, to give the controversy a more technical content.

The Constitutional Court thus reaches the conclusion that, since the prison sentence was less than three months, the Supreme Court should have prevented a sentence that implied “a disproportionate sacrifice in the fundamental right of the affected person to political representation, which produces a patent useless waste of coercion”.

The four conservative justices disagree, however, with that argument. They maintain that Alberto Rodríguez “did not raise at any time, neither in the application for protection, nor in the previous incident of nullity of actions, the disproportionality of the penalty of disqualification for the exercise of the right of passive suffrage, during the time of compliance of the sentence (one month and fifteen days), which is what is examined and gives rise to the estimate of the claim.” They also criticize the fact that it is considered “a patent useless waste of coercion” that for committing a crime against public order a penalty is imposed that involves preventing the appellant, for a month and fifteen days, from being able to “present himself as a candidate in potential elections.” that did not exist.” And they highlight that it is the first time that a Constitutional ruling “modifies the penalty that must be imposed on a convicted person, considering that the penalty imposed is a fine and not imprisonment.”

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