The State Attorney General, Teresa Peramato, has ruled out opening disciplinary proceedings against her immediate predecessor, Álvaro García Ortiz, for the two-year disqualification sentence imposed on him by the Supreme Court for revealing secrets of Alberto González Amador, the boyfriend of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. On the other hand, it has agreed to open a government file regarding the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, Pilar Rodríguez.
Peramato thus responds to González Amador’s claim that the sentence against García Ortiz, which sentenced him to two years of disqualification and the payment of 17,200 euros ―between a fine and compensation―, also has disciplinary consequences, as advanced OkDiario and tax sources confirm to EL PAÍS. As a result of the ruling, the attorney general had to study whether García Ortiz could return to the prosecutor’s career, since in his capacity as head of the public ministry he was in a situation of “special services.” Peramato agreed to reinstate him as a prosecutor, specifically in the Social Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court – where he had requested -, applying a doctrine that was established years ago to prevent, in the disciplinary field, prosecutors from being considered “of worse condition” than judges, for whom only expulsion from the career with a prison sentence is contemplated.
González Amador tried to appeal this first decision by Peramato and his challenge was accompanied by complaints, directed against García Ortiz and Rodríguez, so that he could sanction them. In a new decree, the attorney general responds, on the one hand, that she has no legitimacy to be part of the internal procedure regarding García Ortiz. And, on the other hand, he rules out acting against his predecessor through disciplinary means. He argues that, as head of the prosecutor’s office, he is formally outside the prosecutor’s career and, therefore, his disciplinary regime cannot be applied to him.
However, regarding the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, Peramato does agree to open a government file to determine whether Rodríguez should have abstained earlier in the investigations against González Amador for alleged financial crimes, for which he will finally go to trial. The prosecutor distanced herself from the matter when she was charged by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) for the leaks about the businessman, but he now claims that she should have done it sooner. She maintained her status as an investigator throughout the investigation, both in the Madrid court and in the Supreme Court. At the doors of the trial, the Appeals Chamber exonerated her, considering that she was limited to carrying out orders from her superior.
Peramato’s decision on García Ortiz puts an end to the administrative route. Now, the former attorney general is waiting for the Supreme Court to respond to the appeal that both he and the Prosecutor’s Office presented against the calculation of the costs that he must assume. The high court estimated them at 79,942.70 euros, something that the defense and the public ministry consider openly disproportionate. According to their estimates, they should be set at 4,240 euros. Once this last issue is closed, García Ortiz is expected to request protection from the Constitutional Court, according to the sources consulted by this newspaper. Peramato announced that the Prosecutor’s Office would also knock on the doors of the guarantee court to annul the conviction.
