Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos informed the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court that He will not seek enforcement of three of the sentences the High Court handed down in his favorcanceling the promotion to general of Francisco Javier Sánchez Gil, Arturo Prieto and Antonio Rodríguez-Medel.
The last speech of Diego Pérez de los Cobos at the head of the Civil Guard of Madrid
“The three generals of the Civil Guard whose promotions were canceled by the convictions They are in no way responsible for the illegal behavior of the Administration.“Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos does not intend to affect the professional careers of his colleagues through traumatic decisions that could be irreversible,” the letter states.
In September 2023, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court accepted the appeals filed by Pérez de los Cobos against the promotion to the rank of brigadier general of these three Benemérita commanders promoted by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska , and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, postpone it despite having obtained the most favorable evaluations in the selection process.
This is the second blow dealt by the High Court to the Home Secretary in less than six months. On March 28, 2023, the same Chamber ruled that the dismissal of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos from the head of the command of the Civil Guard of Madrid was contrary to the law.
It took Grande-Marlaska four months, on the eve of the deadline, to comply with this sentence and replace the prestigious colonel at the head of the Madrid command.
But Decisions relating to promotion to general grade have not been implemented. Pérez de los Cobos still has four weeks to join the reserves, at the age of 61.
In the document in which he renounces the forced execution of the sentences and requests the filing of the appeals in which they were pronounced, the defense of the colonel, provided by the lawyer Santiago Milans del Bosch, criticizes “the arbitrary constituting violations of the legal system only on the part of of the Ministries of the Interior and Defense and the General Directorate of the Civil Guard are engaged in the promotion processes to the position of brigadier general of the Civil Guard following the fact that in 2020 the applicant [Pérez de los Cobos] was dismissed from his post as head of the Madrid command”.
From that moment on, there was “a radical change in the selection processes from the procedure that all governments – of one political stripe or another – had maintained over the past four decades”.
Pérez de los Cobos yesterday he received a fourth favorable sentencerendered by the Supreme Court on October 29, which annuls the royal decree which promoted David Blanes to the position of brigadier general of the Civil Guard, on July 11, 2023.
The document waiving forced execution does not include this last sentence.
On October 12, the feast of the patron saint of the Civil Guard, Pérez de los Cobos gave his last speech as head of the Madrid command. “I believe I can affirm without false modesty that I leave with the conviction of having been faithful to the commitments acquired: faithful to respect for the law, to the defense of our constitution, of the unity and territorial integrity of the Fatherland , loyal to my subordinates and disciplined in this true discipline – so far from submission and servility– can and must encompass,” he said.
“In short, I leave with my head held high, a clear conscience and with the highest award that a soldier can cherish, the look of the men and women he had under his command,” he concluded.
The colonel could extend his active status until age 65 if he had been promoted to general, but Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska systematically ignores the results of internal classification processes for the promotion, in which Pérez de los Cobos obtained number 1.
