The Prosecutor’s Office opposes that the ‘ERE’ case will rise to the EU Court of Justice | Spain
The Anti -Corruption Prosecutor’s Office opposes that the political piece of the ERE case It rises to the Court of Justice of the European Union (TJUE), as the Seville Court has raised. The Public Ministry considers that the criteria of the Constitutional Court, which substantially reduced 10 of the sentences to the excuse of the Andalusian Board last summer for embezzlement and prevarication, must prevail over that of the five judges of the Sevillian hearing. These magistrates consider that European law was violated in those 10 sentences of the Guarantees Body and that is why they raised their elevation to the TJUE last week. The Prosecutor’s Office, as part in the process of executing the sentences, disagrees.
« The primacy of the law of the Union does not dispense the jurisdictional bodies of the obligation to respect the principle of criminal legality, » concludes the Public Ministry in its brief presented before the Seville Audience. Anticorruption considers that the Constitutional acted according to law when issuing their sentences, without violating European norms: “No doubt exists that the Constitutional Court does not extralimize when annulled by a judicial resolution for understanding that it incurs extended application or analogy in malam partm of a criminal type. ”The sentences of the High Court canceled the crime of embezzlement and reduced that of prevarication for the former positions of the Board condemned, including former presidents José Antonio Griñán and Manuel Chaves.
At the moment it is about to see how the pulse initiated by the hearing ends to raise the case to the Court of Luxembourg, by avoiding the new drafting of those 10 sentences that the Constitutional covered. The deadline for the parties to position themselves ―Aticorruption, defenses and PP and clean hands as accusations – ended this Wednesday, although a resource of Griñán can lengthen it. Next, the court must make a decision. In parallel, the Constitutional could cancel the resolutions of the hearing in understanding that theirs prevail, according to articles 4 and 92 of the Organic Law of the Court of Guarantees.
In the political piece of ERE case, Anticorruption has accused throughout the process the ex -dollitics accused of embezzlement and prevarication, in line with the criteria of the Sevillian hearing – first court that condemned 19 former high positions – and that of the Supreme Court, which in 2022 ratified his thesis with another conviction. Now, however, it departs from the audience criteria and considers that the constitutional opinion should prevail because it does not collide with European law and therefore the cause cannot rise to Luxembourg. « The considerations that have led to the Constitutional Court to achieve this conclusion (by interpreting that the hearing violated the principle of legality) is not irrational and much less arbitrary (…) the TC has not opted for an alternative interpretation of the criminal types of prevarication and embezzlement, » the prosecutors conclude.
The Prosecutor’s Office cites numerous sentences of the TJUE and clarifies that despite the fact that the judges of all European countries must always be in mind the primacy and demands of the law of the Union, this does not exempt them from ignoring the decisions of higher courts, as in this case the Constitutional, which has the last word in any Spanish sentence. « The EU Court of Justice has affirmed in numerous resolutions that the obligation of national judges to interpret internal regulations in accordance with the demands of the law of the Union, even when to avoid a systematic risk of impunity in corruption is treated, does not authorize violating the principle of criminal legality by permeating interpretations of the criminal types that overflow their literal meaning, » recalls the letter.
Among several sentences of the European Court of the last five years, Anticorruption stands out this passage of a 2022: « The obligation to ensure that such crimes are objects of effective and deterrence criminal sanctions does not dispense the sender jurisdictional body of verifying the necessary respect for fundamental rights. » The Prosecutor’s Office reinterprets the sentence that the PP wielded a month ago in its letter for which it requested the elevation to the TJUE, the Euro Box Promotion Casethat affected Romanian justice, and considers that « it incur an obvious confusion. »
In its resolution two weeks ago, the Sevillian audience estimated that the constitutional sentences had affected the financial interests of the European Union. Now delegated prosecutors, Juan Enrique Egocheaga and Manuel Fernández Guerra, discrepted: « The assumption of fact of prosecution is not included in the scope of article 325 TFUE (Treaty of operation of the European Union), since the behaviors that constitute the object of the procedure did not produce affectation to the financial interests of the European Union. »
Prosecutors clarify to the hearing that their doubts can be resolved by the Guarantees Body without the need to raise the issue to Luxembourg: « Such doubts, according to the criteria seated by the Supreme Court, can be resolved by the Court itself (the TC). »
The fact that a provincial hearing corrects the Court of Guarantees in its interpretation and avoids fulfilling its orders has not occurred so far in democracy, according to the jurists consulted, hence the relevance of the pulse raised by the judges of Seville. Two weeks ago the hearing accused the Constitutional of “overreach” in his control function by invading areas reserved for the jurisdiction of judges and courts, when he reviewed the probative assessment and trial of the hearing itself and the supreme itself. While the conflict is resolved, the 10 former sentenced positions remain released, waiting for their sentences to be executed and written again by the Sevillian audience.
Meanwhile, the spokesman of PP in the Andalusian Parliament, Toni Martín, has opined: « What is happening has no name. The greatest guarantors of the defense of the Constitution and of all laws. It gives the impression that it could be collaborating in bleaching the greatest case of corruption in history », it is a « scandalous attempt to gag Lourdes Lucio.
