Remember that the president contradicted the criteria of the Chamber’s lawyers and that the Supreme Court did not order the withdrawal of the act
MADRID, 6 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
United We can hope that the new Constitutional Court, already with a progressive majority, agrees with the former ‘purple’ deputy Alberto Rodríguez, who was stripped of his seat in October 2021 after being sentenced by the Supreme Court, and that the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, be “coherent” when the guarantee court admits the appeal presented by the affected party.
The Supreme Court sentenced Rodríguez on October 7, 2021 for the crime of attacking an agent of authority that had taken place in 2014. He was sentenced to one and a half months in prison, which was replaced in the ruling by a fine of 540 euros and another accessory of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage (to be eligible) during the same time.
At first, the Table of Congress, with a majority of PSOE and Unidas Podemos, was inclined to keep Rodríguez in his seat, based on a report from the Chamber’s legal services that argued that the sentence should not have extra-criminal effects since that, according to his interpretation, the prison sentence, which would have entailed the loss of the record, had been replaced by a penalty that the deputy had already paid.
The PP and Vox defended at all times that Rodríguez should stop being a deputy and, after the first decision of the Table, the president of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, Manuel Marchena, addressed a letter to Batet asking him to refer to the High Court the report on the start date of compliance with the penalty of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage imposed on Rodríguez.
This led Batet to meet again at the Table, where PSOE and Unidas Podemos supported asking the Supreme Court for clarification on the scope of the sentence. Marchena replied the same day, ruling out any error in the sentence and emphasizing that the special disqualification for the exercise of the right to passive suffrage (being a candidate in an election) is a “mandatory” accessory penalty and that the Supreme Court is not here to advise other bodies. of the State.
Following this response, Batet resolved to carry out the sentence, Rodríguez was left without a seat and later filed an appeal for amparo before the Constitutional Court, which is still pending resolution. Shortly after leaving Congress, Rodríguez left Podemos and next May he will compete for the Presidency of the Canary Islands at the head of a platform called Proyecto Drago.
In an interview with Europa Press, the deputy spokesman for Unidas Podemos, Enrique Santiago, criticizes the TC’s delay in ruling on this appeal and is convinced that it will endorse Rodríguez’s arguments.
“I hope you see it soon, it is clear that there is an urgent need because the legislature is going to end and if Alberto’s seat is not replaced in this legislature, it will never be possible to replace it,” argues the also leader of Izquierda Unida.
Santiago has “no doubt” that “he will agree with him and he will have to return his seat.” “That was the criterion that the legal services of Congress maintained: that the sanction that was imposed, in a very debatable procedure, had already been fulfilled with the payment of the fine,” he says.
“The lawyers maintained that it was a substitute sanction and that it was not appropriate, not any separation from their seat, but not even the suspension for a certain period of time from the exercise of their work, a possibility that the Regulation contemplates,” explains Santiago.
The United We Can deputy stresses that the Supreme Court “has never put in writing that Rodríguez had to be deprived of the seat.” “We are very surprised, the president made a decision that did not correspond. In the end, the sad thing about this is that the only institution that has said that she must be deprived of her seat is the president of the chamber because the Supreme Court has not said so, the services The juridical authorities of Congress have not said so and the sentence did not say so either,” he adds.
Santiago adds that “it will be necessary to see in what terms the appeal is admitted” and if there is “any pronouncement on that” but he is already advancing that Batet “will have to be consistent.”
