Although the First Section of the Provincial Court of Seville has already made a decision on the requests for pardon of those convicted by the ERE, among whom is the former president José Antonio Griñán and seven other party colleagues, the truth is that they have not has made its position known neither to the parties involved nor to the Prosecutor's Office. Thus, according to sources from the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), the reports it has prepared have been sent only to the Ministry of Justice, which has the final say.
With this, the Court considers "completed" the files presented by these eight high-ranking officials of the regional government who were considered guilty of embezzlement in the "specific procedure" for financing fraudulent employment regulation files (ERE) financed with regional funds. .
Although the final decision has not been made known, everything indicates that it will be aligned with the position of the document prepared by Anticorruption, in which it was considered that the crimes for which they were convicted are of such seriousness that they are not compatible with the possibility of going unpunished.
After the Prosecutor's Office finally opposed these requests for pardon, the First Section of the Court of Seville, as the body issuing the original sentence in the case, has issued a series of organizational measures in relation to each of these eight convicts. to prison sentences for the matter, realizing that he has "completed" the file that in each case he was responsible for preparing on the pardon requests, including his own report, sending these files to the Ministry of Justice.
The First Section of the Court, specifically, had to rule before the Ministry of Justice on the petitions of eight of the nine former socialist leaders of the Junta de Andalucía who have requested to be pardoned from their respective prison sentences for embezzlement in the financing mechanism of fraudulent employment regulation files.
This is José Antonio Griñán, sentenced to six years and one day in prison but whose prison sentence is suspended thanks to the prostate cancer he suffers from and in accordance with article 80.4 of the Penal Code; the former socialist Minister of Employment Antonio Fernández, with a sentence of seven years, eleven months and one day in prison; former Treasury Minister Carmen Martínez Aguayo, sentenced to six years and two days in prison; the former socialist Minister of Innovation Francisco Vallejo, sentenced to seven years and one day in prison; the former Socialist Deputy Minister of Employment Agustín Barberá, sentenced to seven years and one day in prison; the former Deputy Minister of Innovation Jesús María Rodríguez Román, sentenced to six years in prison; the former general director of IFA/IDEA Miguel Ángel Serrano, sentenced to six years, six months and one day in prison; and the former Socialist Minister of Employment and Technological Development José Antonio Viera, sentenced to seven years and one day in prison, who nevertheless enjoys the third degree of prison for health reasons after having served several months in prison.
Currently, all of them are serving prison sentences except Griñán, whose prison sentence is suspended due to illness, and Viera, who is in the third degree of prison.
Regarding the former general director of Labor of the Junta de Andalucía Juan Márquez, also sentenced to prison in this case, it will be the Supreme Court that will rule before the Ministry of Justice on his request for pardon against his prison sentence, since after the initial sentence of the First Section of the Court, which resulted in a sentence of disqualification or disqualification and imprisonment for 19 of the 21 former high-ranking socialist officials tried; The Supreme Court partially reversed said initial resolution, reducing Márquez's prison sentence to three years, a sentence currently suspended.
The Prosecutor's Office states in relation to these requests that the pardon "is only exceptionally justified for purposes that remedy "situations considered to be notorious injustice as a consequence of the strict and inevitable application of the law" or cases "in which the execution of the sentence would leave to fulfill the function of resocialization"; since according to the Public Ministry, "the careful examination of the arguments put forward in each of the sections to justify the request for partial pardon of the sentences imposed, a request supported by reasons of justice and equity provided for in article 11 of the pardon law, reveals that none of them is related to the nature and purpose of the pardon institute and its regulatory norm.
Faced with the arguments contained in the pardon request formalized by Griñán's family, "expressly for reasons of humanity and equity" as he is already 78 years old, also citing his "impeccable life trajectory" and that "after more than 40 years of public service from the highest responsibilities, he has never obtained any remuneration other than his salary as a civil servant" nor has he had "personal or family enrichment"; The Prosecutor's Office indicates that "the criminal conduct carried out by the convicted person has been prosecuted with fairness within the abstract framework of the extension of the penalties contemplated by the criminal law for the crimes subject to conviction, crimes that do not require their own economic enrichment."
In this sense, the Prosecutor's Office recalls that the ruling of the Supreme Court that rejected the cassation appeals of these accused against the initial conviction of the First Section of the Court determines that "the personal gain of the abductor is not required, but rather his actions with intention of any benefit, even non-property, that will exist, even if the intention to profit refers to the benefit of a third party.
