The formal ceremony at the Supreme Court with which the judicial year opens began this Thursday with the speech of the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortizwhich, before the king, has reported on the 2022 report of the State Attorney General’s Office, with a defense of the thesis and the actions of the Public Ministry against the sentence reductions under the law of only yes is yes.
Of the law he has said garcia ortiz which “has meant a significant change in the regulation of crimes against sexual freedom in the Penal Code.” He has referred to the decree that he issued in November 2022 to give instructions to prosecutors to oppose the reductions in sentences for sexual offenders that have finally occurred after the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
García Ortiz’s criteria in said decree “were endorsed and assumed by the Board of Chamber Prosecutors“, he clarified and then explained that they were necessary “to guarantee legal security and equality, that the same legal criterion is defended before all the courts and instances of Spain. “A necessary instrument so that the review of sentences would be of equal application anywhere in Spain.”
“We offer the courts a rigorous and impeccable legal thesis, coherent and applicable to all cases and in all cases,” he added, and then pointed out that the courts must then make decisions before which the prosecutor “remains calm with the greatest respect.” “This is how our system works. This is how institutions work, institutions in democracy,” he stated.
About him “denialist discourse of gender violence“, Álvaro García Ortiz has said that it “directly influences the protection of women. “Spain is a benchmark in the fight against gender violence and we cannot and should not go back.”
foreign victims
The attorney general has made a forceful defense of foreign victims, both of gender violence and with respect to unaccompanied minors.
He has pointed out that the Violence against Women Unit warns of the overexposure of foreign women to this type of violence and their greater vulnerability as victims. “Among the causes mentioned are the lack of social support networks, language barriers, ignorance of our legislation and, especially, economic dependence on the aggressor.”
He explained that of the 50 victims of feminicide in 2022, 14 were foreigners. “34.34% of the complaints about acts of gender violence had foreign women as victims and they were affected by 33.27% of the requests for protection orders,” she added.
Of the amnesty, not a word
Although the attorney general has not alluded to the demand for a amnesty law on the part of the Catalan independence movement, it has defended the independence of the State Attorney General’s Office. “The attacks on the figure of the State Attorney General should not – should not – infect the career itself. Well, even though the principle of unity of action is what justifies the hierarchy, there is no decision of the Attorney General that is not subject to the principles of motivation, publicity and, I would dare say, consensus”.
The Association of Prosecutors, majority in the fiscal race, has criticized that Álvaro García Ortiz has not come forward regarding the request for Carlos Puigdemont that the President of the Government intervenes in the Prosecutor’s Office to withdraw the accusations.
Although he has not mentioned the word ‘amnesty’, the issue has been latent in the attorney general’s speech, with allusions to the fact that the democratic system “is not and cannot be an immobile system.”
The Spanish democratic system “is capable of withstanding the strongest tensions and is capable of doing so if we are capable of caring for and preserving the institutions. It is up to us, who are temporary repositories of their representation, even if it is in office or interim manner. It is our responsibility to do so,” said Álvaro García Ortiz, in one of the most tense moments of his speech.
“And democratic institutions will succeed us, as they happened to those who historically preceded us, also with problems or tensions that then seemed impossible to overcome. The result is this plural, diverse and democratic Spanish society, the rule of law in full exercise, in the tension that corresponds to the correct functioning of their powers and the necessary counterweights between them,” he stated.
“Citizens can rest assured, because the action of the Prosecutor’s Office, debatable and criticizable, as is normal and natural in democracy, is subject to filters and controls, to balances in decision-making and to guarantees in our individual actions. The “We prosecutors decide in conflict situations and adopt procedural positions that are sometimes opposed to other parties,” he stressed.
