The Supreme Court annulled the appointment of Julio Cano as Attorney General of the Balearic Islands. The contentious judges granted the appeal of other candidates for the position and ordered the Fiscal Council to repeat the process, but taking into account Cano’s possible incompatibility for the position due to maintaining an emotional relationship with a another prosecutor assigned to the same organization. the islands. The judgment criticizes the fact that the Tax Inspectorate did not transmit these facts to the Tax Council and that their possible incompatibility was not discussed during the votes.
Cano was appointed Attorney General of the Balearic Islands in July 2023, succeeding his predecessor Bartomeu Barceló after 20 years in the role. Prosecutor since 2002 and assigned to the Balearic Islands two years later, Cano covered civil and family specialties, was delegated to Environment and Urban Planning and was also an anti-drug prosecutor. He participated in important operations against drug trafficking in the islands, highlighting his role in the “Nancy case”: the operation against an organization which recruited minors to then prostitute them. One of the victims died of an overdose.
It was proposed by the Balearic Attorney General after obtaining four votes from the Fiscal Council, a consultative and non-binding vote in which one of his rivals obtained an additional vote. José Díaz Cappa, juvenile prosecutor, received the most votes and ultimately appealed his appointment to the Supreme Court.
The appeal alleged that it was Cano himself who had asked the Inspectorate for a report on the possible incompatibility that the romantic relationship he had with one of the members of the public prosecutor’s office could cause for the position. the organization he then aspired to chair. Also, to compensate for this possible incompatibility, a detachment of services was urgently processed.
The Supreme Court explains that neither thing was analyzed by the Tax Council and orders that the process be repeated with all this data on the table. Concerning the possible incompatibility of Cano for the position, the judges affirm that “it is obvious that the general prosecutor’s office, in particular the tax inspectorate, was aware of the emotional relationship between the candidate and a prosecutor assigned to the higher prosecutor’s office to whom the “I chose first” candidate. Regarding this service commission, he understands that there is no “documentary evidence” that it was granted according to the established legal procedure.
