{"id":593511,"date":"2025-11-25T20:24:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/593511\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T20:24:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:24:20","slug":"spain-chief-prosecutor-resigns-after-criminal-conviction-jurist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/593511\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain chief prosecutor resigns after criminal conviction – JURIST"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain\u2019s Attorney General \u00c1lvaro Garc\u00eda Ortiz resigned<\/a> on Monday after the Supreme Court found him guilty of unlawfully disclosing confidential information.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court issued its ruling last week in a 5-2 decision<\/a>. The court banned Garc\u00eda Ortiz from holding his post for two years, imposed a \u20ac7,300 fine, and ordered him to pay \u20ac10,000 in civil damages. The case centered on Garc\u00eda Ortiz\u2019s disclosure of a February 2024 email exchange between prosecutors and Alberto Gonz\u00e1lez Amador\u2019s lawyer. Amador is a businessman under investigation for alleged tax fraud and is also the partner of Madrid\u2019s regional leader, Isabel D\u00edaz Ayuso<\/a>, who is one of Spain\u2019s main opposition leaders.<\/p>\n

The email reportedly contained the lawyer\u2019s settlement proposal with the prosecutors and admission that Amador had committed the tax crimes.\u00a0Garc\u00eda Ortiz leaked the email to journalists on March 13, 2024, just hours after Spanish newspaper El Mundo<\/a> published a report that allegedly contained a false narrative identifying the chief prosecutor as the one offering a plea deal to Amador. The report has since been retracted.<\/p>\n

At trial, Madrid\u2019s Chief Prosecutor Almudena Lastra<\/a> identified Garc\u00eda Ortiz as the source of the leak. During testimony, Garc\u00eda Ortiz admitted he sought to counter the prevailing narrative, stating, \u201cTruth does not leak, truth is defended.\u201d This marked the first time a chief prosecutor faced criminal conviction in Spain\u2019s democratic history.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has not yet issued its full written judgment for the verdict. Procedurally, Garc\u00eda Ortiz can present an incident of nullity before the Supreme Court under Article 241 of the Ley Org\u00e1nica del Poder Judicial<\/a>. This procedure rarely succeeds, but it is essential for subsequently accessing the Constitutional Court<\/a> under Article 44 of the Ley Org\u00e1nica del Tribunal Constitucional<\/a>. Beyond the Constitutional Court, Garc\u00eda Ortiz may ultimately appeal to the European Court of Human Rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The conviction intensifies political tensions between Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a>\u2018s leftist coalition government and the conservative opposition, raising questions about the separation of powers and prosecutorial independence. This follows an international pattern of judicial interventions in different organs of a country, posing unique questions regarding the rule of law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Attorney General \u00c1lvaro Garc\u00eda Ortiz resigned on Monday after the Supreme Court found him guilty of unlawfully…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-593511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115612212494137565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}