The paper that last the magistrate Cándido Conde-Pumpido to the TC for protection -and acquit - convicted for the assault on the Parliament of Catalonia in 2011, as published yesterday in ABC, account with a factor conflicting added that, according to argue legal sources, we should be forced to abstain from the issue and resign to signing the judgment. The article 219 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Power included among the various causes for which a judge should move to resolve an issue "have held public office, served employment or exercised a profession on the occasion of which it has participated directly or indirectly in the subject matter of the suit or cause, or in another related to the same."
This paper was advanced yesterday that Conde-Pumpido, attorney general during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has finalized the drafting of a judgment with which, a priori, intended to protect the eight people who were sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for the episodes of violence that is staged during the siege of the Catalan Parliament does now eight years old.
The debate on whether or not that Conde-Pumpido have to abstain on this issue has also been reproduced internally in the Constitutional Court since it was not only the highest representative of the Prosecutor's office when the incident occurred, but also spoke out publicly at this time that siege of "attacking institutions" and "violent acts." In addition, as attorney general authorized actively to the exercise of the accusation against the persons finally judged , was contrary to the acquittal that issued the National court in the first instance, raised the repetition of the judgment in the processing of resources, and endorsed that the office of the Prosecutor of the Supreme requested prison sentences for the defendants, a thing that finally happened for eight of them.
now, however, as a magistrate of the CT, the legal criterion of Conde-Pumpido seems to have changed. And that is what is creating a serious internal dispute, because if what the law is to ensure the impartiality of the magistrate, who assumes the knowledge of a subject, in this case, in the Conde-Pumpido had a direct involvement as the head of the dome of the Prosecutor's office, some sources consulted by ABC believe that it should depart . All the more reason, if your day could be "contaminated" by holding that the Prosecution would have "zero tolerance" against an "acting violent" that demanded "maximum strength".
UnprecedentedIn fact, there are some precedents relevant that could be applicable to the case. In 2007, during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the judge of the TC Pablo Pérez Tremps was challenged with the idea of not intervening in the deliberations and ruling of the appeals filed against the recently approved Statute of autonomy of Catalonia. Pérez Tremps had participated as expert in the drafting of the Statute itself, had been advised legally on this, and had to be separated from their own peers of the TC for having acquired a preconceived idea about the resources of unconstitutionality. Somehow, it had been contaminated, and impartiality could have been questioned.
Another antecedent more. In march 2008, the plenary of the TC estimated by a majority the objection raised by the then socialist Government against two magistrates to prevent that is to pronounce on the appeal that had been raised by the PP against a reform of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court. It was Roberto García-Calvo (now deceased), and Jorge Rodríguez-Zapata (now a judge of the Supreme), who had been proposed as judges of the TC at the request of the PP, and that a writing had expressed their "profound disagreement" with the reform that the Executive of Zapatero was extended automatically and indefinitely the mandate of the then president of the TC, María Emilia Casas.
Both specifically requested the resignation of Houses and the renewal of the presidency of the maximum constitutional body in time and manner, and questioned a legal reform made-to-measure Houses when the TC had to settle, among other matters very relevant, the resources of unconstitutionality against the Statute of Catalonia. On that occasion, the comments of García Calvo and Rodríguez-Zapata were contaminated, so that finally they were excluded from deciding whether that legal reform was constitutional or not. In a similar case could be found today Conde-Pumpido, any time you have expressed a public opinion about the attempt of assault to the Parliament it could become a condition of full , even if the current opinion differs significantly from that held in 2011.
Now Conde-Pumpido wants to correct the judgment of conviction issued by the Supreme against the assailants, and that he himself had defended against the acquittal decreed by the National Audience. It is something that in the bosom of the TC, and also of the Supreme, some sources consider a change of criterion "unexplained". What before was nothing but an act of violence that deserved reproach and a criminal penalty, according to Conde-Pumpido, is now an act of civic gathering covered in a legitimate political protest. The proposed final judgment in Conde-Pumpido it points now to the assault on the institution of parliament, inserted in the context of social protest in which it was produced, is objectively connected with the normal exercise of a fundamental right, and therefore considered to be voidable the judgment of the Supreme one who as an attorney defended.
Date Of Update: 27 September 2019, 02:03
