He considers that his “unacceptable insinuations” have “broken the ideal framework” to continue the work
MADRID, 13 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Association of Prosecutors (AF) has announced its “will not to continue at the work table to prepare a new Organic Statute of the Prosecutor’s Office (EOMF)”, in the face of a Criminal Procedure Law (LeCrim) that leaves in the hands of prosecutors the criminal cases, considering that the “unacceptable insinuations” of the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, call into question the “professionalism and independence” of the associations.
The majority association of the prosecutor’s career has stated this in a statement issued this Monday after García Ortiz said last Thursday that he saw an “identity of objectives” within the associations of judges and prosecutors with “certain political parties.”
“I cannot say that in the exercise of their profession the members of the judiciary and the political parties are combined. What I do believe is that there is an identity of objectives sometimes between corporate elements within the judicial and prosecutorial associations, there is objectives identical to those of certain political parties,” said the attorney general in an interview on Cadena Ser, reported by Europa Press.
The executive committee of the AF has assured that these statements have “broken the ideal and necessary framework to continue the joint associative work for the elaboration of a new Statute”, for which it has agreed to “get up from the table constituted for this purpose by the prosecutor general”.
Thus, they have criticized García Ortiz for accusing the associations of “being politicized”, something that, in their opinion, does not respect the work they do.
It was last April 10 when García Ortiz and the three tax associations met for the first time to begin studying a reform of the Tax Statute in the face of a possible reform of the LeCrim that would remove the direction of criminal investigations from judges and leave them in the hands of the prosecutors.
Sources familiar with that meeting told Europa Press that the meeting was mostly about studying how a study commission can be created to modify the Statute, based on previous studies that already existed in this regard in the tax career, such as the one promoted by former State Attorney General Eduardo Torres Dulce.
However, the consulted sources indicated that the AF insisted on the need to protect the independence of the institution, not only of the attorney general, but also of the prosecutors themselves with a transparent system for adjudicating matters and with transparency in the communication of the Government.
The meeting between García Ortiz and the associations took place after the Ministry of Justice announced its intention to recover the project for a new LeCrim in 2024. According to the tax sources consulted by this news agency, the Attorney General’s Office understands that “this new law must necessarily be accompanied” by a new Statute of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has prompted the attorney general to convene the AF, the UPF, and the APIF.