A prosecutor of all and for all. With this letter of introduction, Dolores Delgado's substitute at the head of the State Attorney General's Office has compared this Thursday before the Justice Commission of Congress, the last procedure before his appointment by the Council of Ministers and taking office after swearing o Promise me before the King.
Aware of the suspicions that his number has risen, which has violated a week in the General Council of the Judiciary, where seven voices questioned his suitability, Álvaro García Ortiz has begun his intervention by announcing his resignation from the Progressive Union of Prosecutors, a gesture that for him has, as he has said, an enormous symbolic value, since he was a member since he began his career in 1999.
His words and good intentions have not convinced the opposition, who see his mandate as an extension of Dolores Delgado. Not in vain has she been in recent years the right hand of the resigned attorney general, who appointed him head of the Technical Secretariat, rising to the first category. With her, he has also shared in part that "reputational damage" to the institution that this morning the spokesmen for the PP, Vox and Ciudadanos, Luis Santamaría, Javier Ortega Smith and Edmundo Bal, respectively, have blamed on him. “It is unfortunate that the Government does not find a person who is and seems impartial, neutral, independent and who favors the independence of prosecutors from the Executive Branch. You don't have that image," Bal told him.
He has not noticed the intervention of García Ortiz, in December 2019, he has a pre-campaign act of the Galician PSOE nor his unclear intervention in the Stampa case, where the prosecutor who instructed the procedure against that representative of the Public Ministry accused him, in statements to ABC, of maneuvering to crookedly delay the investigation against the prosecutor of the Tándem case, in which the office of Delgado's partner, Baltasar Garzón, defends several defendants. Sober the first of the facts, García Ortiz has again revealed his intervention in the act of political societies, and has stressed that he participated as a representative of the Public Ministry and that he did so with the permission of the Tax Inspection. “The content of the act is evident that they have not heard it. No matter what is said; only the photo mattered”, lamented the attorney general, who has starred in several direct confrontations with Santamaría (PP).
Just "suggestions"
García Ortiz has defended his intervention in the Stampa case and has pointed out that he did not give (because he cannot) any order to the prosecutor who was investigating, and that in any case it was "suggestions", something usual, he has said, at work of the Technical Secretariat of the State Attorney General's Office.
During his comparison before the intervention of the spokesmen of the parliamentary groups, García Ortiz has expressed his recognition of the work carried out by Delgado are the "important beneficial advantages for the fiscal career" that his predecessor launched, between the increase parafiscal seats , training plans, circulars and instructions. "I am embarrassed that someone says that from the Technical Secretariat we have not done anything," lamented the next attorney general. He took advantage of the occasion to attack the seven members of the Council who signed a dissenting vote questioning his impartiality for the criticism they poured against him without having yet begun his career as attorney general.
tax instructor
Among the challenges at the head of the Public Ministry, García Ortiz has referred to the change in the procedural model that will imply leaving the investigation of criminal cases in the hands of the Prosecutor's Office instead of the investigating judge and has not hidden the need to reinforce mechanisms of autonomy of the fiscal through the reform of the organic statute of the career. In this sense, he has also announced a clear circular on investigative diligence that will replace the 2013 one and that as attorney general he will ensure that aspects such as accountability and the right to disagree with the prosecutor are guaranteed.
Miguel Ángel Blanco Case
Precisely to the discrepancies with hierarchical superiors, García Ortiz has referred in relation to the Miguel Ángel Blanco case and the controversial change of criteria that has led the Public Ministry to not very possible to proceed with the intellectual authors of the murder of the popular mayor. And this against the will of the prosecutor in the case, Vicente González Mota. "Neither in this case nor in others have directives of any kind been given" and he has rectified Edmundo Bal when he has reproached him that the facts are not prescribed, unlike what the prosecutor-chief of the Court, Jesús Alonzo. "The National High Court Prosecutor's Office has never hindered, nor will it ever, the investigations (...)". On the contrary, he has maintained, he has contributed to the disappearance of "ETA". However, the new attorney general has promised to convene the board of prosecutors to resolve discrepancies subject to possible prescription. The tax council, the sanhedrin of the tax career, is made up of thirty first-class taxes, and different specialties and sensitivities. The last (and only time) that Delgado summoned her was with the motivation of the report of the proceedings on Ayuso's brother by the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The fiscal council then closed ranks with Anticorruption, which opposed has released the investigations that would end up being filed.
"The interested leak and internal emails do not do if it does not increase the pain of the victims and give rise to unwanted controversies that can be subject to manipulation," he said in relation to the emails exchanged between Alonso and González Mota.
García Ortiz has soberly seen the information published by ABC about the alleged meeting in a Madrid hotel restaurant with the former president of the Private Bank of Andorra Higini Cierco, Rajoy's accuser in the so-called "Catalonia operation." The attorney general has announced legal action against this newspaper for continuing to maintain the existence of a meeting to which two witnesses attest.
