In a key week for the future of the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, with the trial for revealing secrets seen during the sentencing, Minister Félix Bolaños faced this Friday in Congress criticism from practically all groups for the legal reform that leaves criminal investigations in the hands of prosecutors. The new criminal procedure law, already being examined by the Chamber, is one of the most far-reaching legal changes in recent years and, among other innovations, separates the mandate of the attorney general from the legislative one and limits the role of the public prosecutor. Upon his arrival at the Judiciary Committee, Bolaños opted for caution when asked whether the Government will support, as it has done so far, García Ortiz if he is convicted by the Supreme Court. “Now is the time to trust in justice, to have faith in the second tribunal and to have a little patience so that we know the sentence”, he concluded.
Inside the meeting, the only help that the Minister of Justice found this Friday was that of his government partner. Sumar’s deputy, Enrique Santiago, who rejects some aspects of the law, said it unambiguously: “Count on our support.” A solitary support in the face of openly combative opposition. “We find it in bad taste that a legislative reform is presented during the trial of the Attorney General. What is wanted is not the greatest transformation, but the greatest takeover of Spanish justice,” said Junts deputy, Josep Pagès i Massó. ERC MP Pilar Vallugera joined this opinion and added: “The legislature is at a standstill. It is absurd to continue the fiction.” For the PP it is “a law for an omnipotent attorney general at the service of the government”. “The law comes at a time when the current law has caused enormous damage to the institution,” said popular MP Sandra Moneo.
Although the minister reminded journalists in front of journalists that Puigdemont’s return “does not depend on the government”, but on the Constitutional Court, which will have to rule in the coming months, within the commission, Bolaños winked at Junts. “This is an important step for the complete application of the amnesty law, an application that must be carried out by the judicial bodies of our country so that it also affects all the leaders of the processes. It is true that the most significant leaders of the sovereignty process are missing and, therefore, once the process is finished both in the European and Spanish courts, I hope that the application is complete and that it benefits all the pro-independence leaders”, he underlined in an explicit defense so that the pardon measure affects the former president.
He thus tried to calm the minds of Puigdemont’s supporters, whose MP accused the minister of being “in a phase of denial”. “The rupture has occurred. Denial is the first phase of mourning. Mr. Bolaños, there is no parliamentary majority, we are not where we were and therefore it is not up to the Government to impose the political framework”, argued Pagés i Massó just one day after the independentists had supported two Government regulations – already excluded from the veto – and had come to the aid of the Executive to reject a very symbolic amendment of the PP on the life of nuclear power plants. The deputy proposed to the minister the calling of elections as the only possible way. Junts insisted that he will present an amendment to the entire Lecrim, as well as the rest of the proposals coming from the Government.
“We are not in a stagnant legislature,” he argued. “Yesterday two laws were approved. At the beginning of the legislature it was said that it would not last, because in a few months Sánchez will become the second longest-serving president of democracy”, defended Bolaños, who once again asked the people of Puigdemont to sit at the table again. “Let’s talk about the implementation of Catalan in justice, I call you and invite you to improve the lives of Catalans. Because, if you don’t work to improve the lives of Catalans, what’s the point of Junts?”, he concluded, raising his tone.
