Insists that it is necessary to reform the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor beyond the future LeCrim
MADRID, 5 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, has affirmed that the Public Ministry has “a serious credibility problem” that he has attributed to the fact that “it is undoubtedly one of the most unknown institutions”, while reiterating the need to carry out a reform of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (EOMF).
“The Prosecutor’s Office is undoubtedly one of the most unknown institutions within the constitutional bodies, we have a serious credibility problem as a result of that ignorance,” he said in an interview published this Thursday by Registrars Magazine, when asked if the Prosecutor’s Office General State (FGE) manages studies on its perception among citizens.
García Ortiz believes, on the one hand, that what the Public Prosecutor’s Office does and how it does it has not been known to be conveyed and, on the other, that “both the prejudices generated by the way in which the prosecutor is chosen, as well as the unsympathetic image that the world of cinema and literature have transferred from the work of the Prosecutor’s Office have largely conditioned the knowledge” of the institution.
Questioned about the draft bill to reform the Criminal Procedure Law (LECrim), which will transfer the task of directing criminal investigations to prosecutors, he considered that “the reform is as necessary as it is inevitable” because the current procedural model “has expired “.
“The new forms of crime require another way of investigating and prosecuting, and the approach of the 19th century that still applies to our penal system today does not work,” he indicated.
In this sense, he specified that “we are not approved by countries with a legal tradition similar to ours and we are becoming an exception, a rarity in comparative law.”
In line, the head of the State Attorney General’s Office has added that the changes in the EOMF are also “necessary”. And “they are in any case, with penal reform or without it”, he has riveted.
In this line, he has stressed that, although his priority objective is “to place the human being, the person with capital letters, and the dignity inherent to his condition as the fundamental axis” of the work of the Public Ministry, he has also proposed “to promote or initiate, if possible, the paths that can lead us to better fulfill our constitutional mission, promoting the internal or legal reforms necessary for it”.
He has also been questioned about the system of access by competitive examination to the legal professions, to which he has responded that “access by competitive examination is a guarantee of equality among all Spaniards”, defending that “an objective system must be maintained through a test that guarantees those principles”.
“But I also believe that the exam, to be a judge or prosecutor in this case, should not become a mental gymnastics Olympics, but promote different skills and recognize other skills,” he added.
In his opinion, “memory is not the only patrimony of a jurist”, noting that “he must know the society in which he lives and works, and the citizens he serves”.
