The decision of the Constitutional Court (TC) to correct the sentence in the ERE case which sentenced the former presidents of the Junta de Andalucía Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán has pushed this cause of corruption into a path from which it is difficult to escape. Its revision obliges the same court of the first section of the Court of Seville which pursued for a year the former high socialist officials to pronounce a new sentence starting almost from scratch and assuming the “new legality” applied by the guarantee body .
In the five years that have passed since the Court pronounced, on November 19, 2019, the first sentence of the so-called specific aid procedure, during which Chaves and Griñán were tried and sentenced, things have changed a lot exchange. To start, It is not possible to establish the same court which had access to the evidence pronounce a sentence in accordance with the precepts of the TC. The Guarantees Court partially annulled the convictions of the majority of those convicted, arguing that the clientelist and uncontrolled distribution of almost 680 million euros was not illegal if the elements which supplied the subsidy fund appeared in the budgetary laws of the Régie.
Of the three judges who made up the original court, only one of them remains active: Pilar Llorente. Juan Antonio Calle Peñathe president of the award, retired at the beginning of 2021 and replaced the magistrate’s robe with the practice of law. Incarnation Gomez Casellesthe third member, is on voluntary leave to care for a family member after leaving for the Alicante court. There is no sign that this will be the case suspend the authorization to render a decision which, to make matters worse, modifies the first resolution. A magistrate alone cannot constitute a court.
To get out of this labyrinth, the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) launched an “urgent consultation” to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which granted leave to the third magistrate. It’s in your hands to decide cHow are victims of the ERA sentencing body compensated?.
The president of the TSJA, Lorenzo del Rioexplained yesterday in an interview with Canal Sur that “the general rule” is that in a legal case of this nature, “The sentences are pronounced by the same” intervening magistrates in the initial procedure. He stressed, however, that this rule “only exempts those who have lost the status of judge or those who move to leave legislation but to occupy political positions”, which “is not the case of the magistrate”. In other words, the first option for the TSJA is for Gómez Caselles to be part of the court that will make the final decision in the ERE case. In the event that he decides to exhaust it, it seems, the outcome would be delayed pending his reinstatement.
Repeat the test, an unlikely option
“Plan B” is to repeat the trial, but legal sources consulted by ABC consider this option strange. Due to the trial held by the First Section 120 witnesses and nine experts appeared during 152 sessions which lasted more than a year. The result is known: the court chaired by Juan Antonio Calle Peña condemned the two former presidents of the Council for prevarication and/or embezzlement of funds. Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán; to a former minister, Magdalena Alvarez; to a former regional vice-president, Gaspar Zarrias; to four former advisors… and so on until reaching 19 former senior socialist officials. In September 2022, the Supreme Court largely ratified the sentence until the arrival of the TC, chaired by Judge Cándido Conde-Pumpidoformer state attorney general with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and ordered to arrest.
Repeating a trial of this magnitude seems unthinkable. This would give the defendants’ defenses the opportunity to request the annulment of the proceedings.
The TSJA asks the CGPJ to interpret whether Gómez “can or cannot be part of this court.” Del Río acknowledges that This situation represents “a major setback”. The president of the TSJA hopes that the CPGJ will find a way out of this impasse “in a short time”. For now we must wait.
