MadridThe conviction of the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, is one that marks a turning point, a stage in the life of the State and the relations between its institutions. The reasoning behind the sentence will, of course, need to be examined, but the very fact that the Attorney General has been found guilty of a crime implies a correction imposed on the government of Pedro Sánchez, which had defended his innocence. Furthermore, the conduct of the Public Prosecutor's Office was being judged for refuting a media manipulation. What García Ortiz did was address a lie that compromised the credibility of his administration. The false news was that the Public Prosecutor's Office had halted negotiations with businessman Alberto González Amador—accused of tax fraud—following instructions received from high-ranking officials, that is, from the government. It was further claimed that the attempted settlement had initially been promoted by the prosecutors, when in reality it had been requested by the defense.
The Prosecutor's Office clarified that these contacts had been made at the request of the lawyer for González Amador, the partner of the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and that therefore the prosecutors were not acting maliciously in the contacts established. However, the other side sought to portray the matter as an episode of political harassment of which a businessman had been the victim for being romantically involved with a prominent opposition leader like President Ayuso. Aided by her chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, she herself spread the idea that what the government and the Prosecutor's Office really intended was to attack her for her relationship with a businessman unjustly accused by the Tax Agency.
Over the past year and a half, a case of alleged €350,000 tax fraud involving falsified invoices has morphed into a case of revealing secrets against García Ortiz, reversing the roles of investigator and investigated party, who has managed to turn his accuser against him. Naturally, González Amador remains charged, and both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office have requested a sentence of 3 years, 9 months, and 1 day in prison, along with a fine of €623,000 and €448,000, respectively. However, no date has yet been set for this trial, while we have an Attorney General already convicted and disqualified from holding public office for two years, against the opinion of two judges who voted for acquittal.
In any case, this is not the end of it. García Ortiz will surely file a motion to dismiss with the Supreme Court first, a necessary step before appealing to the Constitutional Court. And this will be the most interesting battle. The Constitutional Court has a history of overruling the Supreme Court. It did so in the case of the ERE layoffs in Andalusia, regarding the amnesty law, and concerning the conviction of Alberto Rodríguez, the IU deputy who lost his seat after being convicted of kicking a police officer. We'll see if history repeats itself between the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.
