He does not pronounce on the case of the Catalan leader but says that conformity is a good “instrument”
MADRID, 16 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, has defended this Thursday the legal figure of conformity, although refusing to pronounce specifically on the agreements reached by the Public Ministry with several defendants in the trial of the president of Junts, Laura Borràs, some pacts that the senator of said party Josep María Cervera has attributed to the supposed desire to incriminate the Catalan leader.
During the Justice Commission held in the Senate for García Ortiz to present the annual report of the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), Cervera has denounced that the prosecutor in the case “has agreed with other accused substantial reductions” in sentence “in exchange for incriminate” Borràs.
Cervera has indicated that this “worries” them because “it could take anyone to jail, since a good offer will suffice to find someone willing to accuse us” of whatever is convenient.
Consequently, he wanted to know what knowledge García Ortiz had of these conformities in the trial that is being followed against Borràs in the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) for allegedly splitting 18 contracts when he directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (ILC). .
In response, the head of the Public Ministry has alluded to the “conformity institute” but has specified that he was not going to refer to the specific case of Borràs. “Conformity is a regulated and perfectly admitted institute”, an “instrument of efficiency and speed” that has “controls”, he has defended himself.
However, he has conceded that “conformities must be explained and say why they are made.” In this regard, he has urged us to reflect on why victims agree to agree with their alleged aggressors in cases of sexual violence.
García Ortiz has indicated that, although in all cases he agrees with the victim’s ‘placet’, “his will may be flawed” due to the pressure with which he comes before the court.
“Why does a victim come to a process with that burden”, to the point that “he does not want to testify in court and reaches conformity that he may not want?”, he has raised.
On the other hand, ERC senator Laura Castel has reproached García Ortiz for the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office analyzed in its annual report the cases of “demonstrations in Barcelona for the anniversary of 1-O” within its section on terrorism. “A terrorist group, from the outset I don’t think it will manifest itself”, she snapped at him.
Along the same lines, he has asked for explanations about the actions that the Prosecutor’s Office has undertaken in relation to the alleged espionage with Pegasus against pro-independence leaders uncovered by Citizen Lab.
“If these actions are prosecuted when they are not pro-independence citizens (…), I understand that the violations that affect pro-independence citizens will also be prosecuted, or will they act with bias?”, he launched.
Castel has warned García Ortiz against incurring in an “omission of functions due to bias”: “Do not place yourself in that situation of deliberate ignorance regarding ‘catalangate'”.
The attorney general has not referred directly to Castell’s questions, but he has maintained that there are “no biases” in the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. “There is no bias in any sense, we do not see different behaviors from each other,” he asserted.
In addition, he has claimed that, although Spain may have convictions for violations of fundamental rights, “that is what the courts are for, to correct those deficiencies.”
García Ortiz did not hesitate to state that “the operation of the rule of law is the same for everyone”, which is why “it is difficult to speak of Spain as a country in which Human Rights are not respected”.
