Bolaños assures that the presence of the magistrates in them would not have “any use” either.
The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, clarified this Tuesday that judges “have no obligation to attend parliamentary investigation commissions”, nor those recently created to detect alleged cases of ‘lawfare’, because also “it would have no use either.”
This is how Bolaños expressed himself at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, in which he explained that from the “legal and constitutional framework that regulates the investigative commissions, it follows that the investigative commissions can neither review judicial resolutions nor bind the courts”.
“The law itself also establishes that judges and magistrates have no obligation to attend investigative commissions and they have no obligation to attend because the law says so, but it would also not be of any use,” he explained.
And this is so, the minister has pointed out, “because all the knowledge that the judges and magistrates have of these criminal cases is from having been the judges and magistrates of those procedures.” “And it is just what the law prohibits that can be revealed, therefore I believe that this debate, just from the reading of the Constitution, the organic law of the Judiciary and the regulations of Congress itself, is a debate that is resolved very clearly,” he concluded.
It is worth remembering that the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) will discuss in its plenary session this Thursday the legality of the newly created parliamentary investigation commissions to detect alleged cases of ‘lawfare’, at the request of conservative members, who consider it necessary that the body adopts a “resounding position” against the “harassment” of judges and magistrates.
Their origin is part of the agreement reached by the PSOE and Junts to invest Pedro Sánchez as president of the Government, where there is talk of creating investigative commissions whose conclusions “will be taken into account in the application of the amnesty law to the extent that they could.” situations that fall within the concept of ‘lawfare’ or judicialization of politics may arise, with the consequences that, where appropriate, may give rise to liability actions.”
That final tagline has made both the judges and the prosecutors who participated in the cases that will be affected by the amnesty fear that actions will be taken against them, which has led the four prosecutors of the trial of the process’ -Consuelo Madrigal , Javier Zaragoza, Fidel Cadena and Jaime Moreno – to request “institutional protection” from the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Estado, a matter that will be debated on the 20th in the Plenary Session of the Fiscal Council.
DOCUMENTS CLASSIFIED BY PEGASUS
On the other hand, Bolaños has also been questioned about whether the Government will proceed to declassify documents related to the use of Pegasus spy software by the CNI. “There is a public commitment from the Government that comes from behind and that is that in this matter absolute transparency,” he responded.
Along these lines, the minister recalled that the Executive promised “that if a judge requested declassification and it did not affect national security” it would proceed with it. “Because what we want is for it to be clarified,” he insisted, recalling that “one of the victims of these procedures was the President of the Government himself.”
Bolaños has referred in this way to the case that the National Court filed last July and in which he investigated the alleged espionage that Sánchez and several of his ministers suffered with Pegasus.
“With a clear conscience and so that it is clarified, we will declassify what the judges ask us to do, although national security will prevail,” he concluded.”
