The Supreme Court leaves the report on the pardons of Griñán and seven former senior officials in the 'ERE case' in the hands of the Seville Court

The Supreme Court has clarified that the Seville Court must report on eight of the nine pardons that the senior officials of the Andalusian Junta condemned by the ERE case They requested the Ministry of Justice. On January 16, the high court sent an ordering procedure to the Sevillian Court to specify that it is the judges of the Andalusian capital's body who must inform the Government, with their legal criteria, whether or not it should pardon former president José Antonio Griñán and seven other former senior officials of the Board.

The Supreme Court passes the ball to the Sevillian Court because its ruling in the fraudulent ERE case only modified the sentence of the former General Director of Labor of the Board Juan Márquez, and maintained the sentences handed down in the first instance by the Court. That is, the Court will inform the Government whether it considers that it should pardon the former high-ranking Andalusian officials after consulting the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. After the legal reports, the Executive will decide on the measure of grace, requested more than a year ago by nine former socialist officials of the Board.

The First Section of the Seville Court, which imposed the sentences for this case in November 2019, already opened files for each case last year, but the legal doubt arose whether it should decide on Juan Márquez, since the Supreme Court had reduced his sentence. seven to three years in prison. Márquez succeeded Javier Guerrero as head of the General Directorate of Labor of the Board that processed the files for the subsidies to the ERE. Now the high court has clarified that in the case of the former director general of Labor, his judges will study it and decide, but in the other eight files, including that of Griñán, the magistrates of Seville will be. The Court has sent the piece of Márquez's pardon to the high court after it requested it twice, in December and in January.

Based on the criteria of its eight files, five days ago the judges of the Court asked Anti-Corruption in an order to issue its legal report on the pardons, and later to adopt a position on the matter. The procedures to decide on pardons were initiated by the Ministry of Justice last October. Along with Griñán, former councilors Francisco Vallejo, Carmen Martínez Aguayo, José Antonio Viera and Antonio Fernández and former senior officials Agustín Barberá, Miguel Ángel Serrano, Juan Márquez and Jesús María Rodríguez had requested the measure of grace. All have gone to prison except the former Andalusian president, due to the cancer he suffers from, and the former general director Juan Márquez, as his sentence has been reduced in the Supreme Court ruling.

The Seville Court will compile information with the criminal history of the convicted charges, the part of the sentence they have served and the conduct they have had as inmates. In addition to Anti-Corruption, the Andalusian Board may rule on the pardon as an Administration harmed by the embezzlement committed by the convicted.

The process of the requested pardon, whose duration usually ranges between one and two years, is parallel to the appeal of those convicted before the Constitutional Court to reform the Supreme Court ruling.

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