The Government has chosen Teresa Peramato to replace Álvaro García Ortiz as State Attorney General. The Executive’s proposal comes after the Supreme Court sentenced García Ortiz to a two-year ban from office for the crime of revealing secrets linked to the entrepreneur Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and on trial for fraud against the Treasury.
The new attorney general will be the fourth since Pedro Sánchez arrived in La Moncloa in June 2018. Before García Ortiz there were María José Segarra and Dolores Delgado, who also resigned, although in her case, due to health problems. In the meantime, the functions of attorney general will be assumed, as expected, by the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Ángeles Sánchez Conde, number two in the fiscal leadership.
Article 124.4 of the Constitution establishes that the State Attorney General will be appointed by the King, upon proposal of the Government, after having previously heard the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). Once it has received the CGPJ’s report, which is not binding, the Government will have to communicate its proposal to Congress, which will set a date on which the candidate will have to appear before the Congressional Judiciary Commission.
García Ortiz presented his resignation from office on Monday in a letter sent to the Minister of Justice. In the letter sent to Bolaños, García Ortiz explained that the decision to anticipate his departure before the Supreme Court which carries out the disqualification, and “without even waiting to know the motivation of the sentence”, is due to his “deep respect” for judicial resolutions and his “always present will, to protect the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office”. “Although my determination derives directly from the sentence notified to me, to my credit I am convinced that I have faithfully served the institution to which I am honored to belong, with an unequivocal vocation to public service, sense of duty and institutional loyalty.” García Ortiz could have remained in office until the Supreme Court notified the sentence with the arguments that led it to condemn him (for now it has only made the sentence public), since it will be then that the sentence will come into force. But the Attorney General chose to bring forward his departure by taking advantage of Article 31.1 a) of the Organic Statute of the Attorney General’s Office (EOMF), which provides that the State Attorney General may resign “at his request.”
