The Association of Prosecutors (AF), the majority of the prosecutor’s career, has filed a lawsuit against Spain before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) considering that the decision of the Constitutional Court to endorse the policy of discretionary appointments in the State Attorney General’s Office, which is now directed by Teresa Peramato, replaces “the principles of merit and capacity with criteria of affinity.”
The AF has taken this step as a result of supporting the decision of former Attorney General Dolores Delgado to appoint Eduardo Esteban as Juvenile Prosecutor. The guarantee body agreed last January – with the votes against of four judges from the conservative bloc and the abstention of the fifth judge from said sector – to correct the Supreme Court and annul the two sentences by which Esteban’s appointment was revoked.
In a statement released this Monday, the president of the AF, Cristina Dexeus, maintains that this action of the Constitutional Court supports “a criterion of maximum discretion in the appointments of the Prosecutor’s Office”, which allows “ideological affinity” to “prevail” over the principles of merit and capacity. This, in his opinion, “legitimizes” a system of appointments in which said ideological affinity, “carefully coated with legal argumentation,” can “impose” itself over the technical specialization required to perform the position.
For the association, the “doctrine” of the Constitutional Court “transcends the specific case” examined and “affects the entire institutional system by weakening the guarantees that should govern the exercise of public power and compromising the credibility of the Prosecutor’s Office as an essential institution of the Rule of Law.”
[Noticia en elaboración. Habrá ampliación]
