The Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested that the Constitutional Court exclude José María Macías, the last magistrate to participate in the plenary session, from the deliberations related to the amnesty law, which he publicly opposed last year. The Public Prosecutor’s Office understands that Macías cannot be the rapporteur of the Popular Party’s appeal because, during his time as a member of the General Council of the Judiciary, he had “direct participation” in the Council’s “official actions” against the amnesty, for example by issuing a report against it, which implies for the Prosecutor’s Office a “thorough, reasoned, reiterated, detailed and categorical” assessment of the law.
The Prosecutor’s Office presented this challenge against Macías in the first case related to the amnesty that it had to study: the question of unconstitutionality presented by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. Their arguments, however, are applicable to the 20 challenges that have been presented against the rule, among them by the PP itself, an appeal in which Macías is the speaker.
During his time as a member of the CGPJ, Macías led a group of members who actively opposed, among other government measures, this amnesty law, forcing the publication of a contrary report that had not been requested of them at first. According to the prosecution, participation in this report was “a truly typical act of the exercise of the public function that he exercised” and with which he “directly participated in the matter that is the subject of the trial or case.” Macías’ participation was not something “purely formal,” the prosecution claims, but rather “evident.”
The Constitutional Court has received more than 15 appeals of unconstitutionality presented by the PP and the autonomous communities it governs, some regional parliaments and Castilla-La Mancha. The first challenge admitted to processing was the question of unconstitutionality presented by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.
