The new State Attorney General, Teresa Peramato, completed last Thursday a process that has provoked harsh criticism from those who understand that with this round of discretionary appointments she has purged the detractors of her immediate predecessor, Álvaro García Ortiz. The Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF) has reacted by denouncing a campaign of “systematic delegitimization”, far from what it believes should be criticism formulated “from rigor, respect and institutional loyalty.”
It was last February 27 when Peramato took over the leadership of the Prosecutor’s Office. Then, he opted to promote former members of García Ortiz’s team, such as Ana García León or Diego Villafañe, to the detriment, for example, of the prosecutors of the process Consuelo Madrigal and Jaime Moreno. In this way, a process of renewal of the Technical Secretariat began, the engine room of the State Attorney General’s Office where people of the highest confidence of the person who directs the institution usually end up. The change culminated last Thursday, with a new batch of appointments that positioned Isabel Martín, from the Technical Secretariat, as head of the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, a position she had held for five years. At the same time, Peramato refused to consolidate Julián Salto as prosecutor of the National Court; promoted Pilar Rodríguez, the head of the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, to the Supreme Court; and placed Pilar Fernández, García Ortiz’s wife, as lieutenant of the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Galicia.
The Association of Prosecutors (AF) – the majority in the prosecutorial race – interpreted these movements by Peramato as an “evacuation plan” to “orderly and quickly evict people from a place of risk to a safe point” in order to favor “those who were part of García Ortiz’s narrowest circle of trust.” The AF focused on Lastra, whose professional performance it says “could not be subject to any objection.” “But he had the audacity to contradict the official doctrine (…), his testimony being one of the elements of evidence” against García Ortiz. Regarding Rodríguez, who was exonerated at the doors of the trial by the Supreme Court itself, the AF pointed out that her great merit is being in “absolute harmony” with her former boss because she lacks “prior experience” to land in the social section of the Supreme Court’s Prosecutor’s Office. From the PP, they spoke directly of “internal purges after
UPF responds that, although “criticism is inherent to any democratic institution,” “it must be formulated with rigor, respect and institutional loyalty.” “Systematic delegitimization, self-serving simplification or the projection of suspicions on decisions adopted in accordance with the law do not strengthen the independence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but rather compromise it,” he warned in a statement.
For the progressive association, the “assessments” heard, “beyond the legitimate discrepancy, project a distorted image of the processes for providing positions in the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” which ensures that “they are governed by the principles of merit and capacity and are developed in full compliance with the law.” For this reason, he maintains that “his global disqualification, through terms such as ‘purges’ or arbitrary decisions, not only lacks foundation, but also directly affects the prestige of the institution and the professional consideration of its members.”
“All candidates have sufficient merits”
The UPF regrets that, to begin with, critics tend to omit an essential premise: that “all the candidates who participate in these processes have sufficient merits.” “Precisely for this reason,” he explains, “the decision does not consist of identifying who has them – because they have them – but rather determining which profile is most suitable for the performance of specific functions.” The association concedes that “seniority in the ranks is, without a doubt, an element to consider,” but warns that “turning it into the only determining criterion means, in reality, displacing the very meaning of the principles of merit and capacity.” “It is not about denying its value, but about rejecting its absolutization,” he clarifies, stating that, “when accessing positions of responsibility, what is at stake is not only the accumulation of years of service, but management capacity, technical solvency, experience in team management, institutional knowledge, specialization or the adaptation of the project to the destination.”
The UPF also sees “particularly striking that the value of the trajectories developed in central bodies of the Prosecutor’s Office is questioned,” such as the Technical Secretariat. He recalls that, “historically, this performance has been considered an element of special relevance, precisely because of the global vision of the institution that it provides and the technical and organizational demands that it entails”, which is why he considers that “to deny this value now not only represents a partial and interested reading of reality, but would also be difficult to withstand the contrast with the evolution of the career itself at different times and under attorney generals of different sensitivities.”
However, it indicates that, “beyond the specific cases, what is truly worrying is the consolidation of a framework of interpretation in which any decision that does not conform to a certain expectation is presented as illegitimate”, thereby configuring “a previous, closed story, which makes any resolution that does not coincide with it suspicious.” For the UPF, “this approach not only distorts the analysis, but also projects towards citizens a reductionist and distorted image of the Prosecutor’s Office, alien to its plural reality and the professionalism of its members.” Furthermore, “it is especially disturbing that this type of approach is sometimes reinforced by voices from the race itself, even though we are aware that it does not conform to the facts or the way in which these decisions have traditionally been adopted.” “This dynamic does not contribute to the debate, but unnecessarily weakens the institutional position of the Prosecutor’s Office and erodes its credibility,” warns UPF.
