The campaign for the general election of November 29 will not entail a pause for judicial activity. In the coming weeks, statements by accused individuals and witnesses will continue to be held in some of the most high-profile proceedings of the Audiencia Nacional, including the 'Koldo case', the 'Leire Díez case', the 'Plus Ultra case', and the investigation into the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta.
The courts of Plaza de Castilla, in Madrid, will also continue with their schedule, with several witness examinations scheduled in the case concerning alleged irregularities in the rescue of Air Europa. Among those summoned are the Third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, and the former parliamentary spokesperson of Sumar, Íñigo Errejón.
The judicial bodies will continue working at full speed at a time when, by tradition, judges usually avoid adopting resolutions with major impact, following the unwritten rule of not interfering in election periods.
With the official start of the campaign, on November 17 the judge will take a statement from former Adif official Ignacio Zaldívar, who is being investigated in the 'Koldo case'. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office attributes to him an alleged crime of influence peddling for his supposed involvement in irregular contracting at the public company Tragsatec of Jéssica Rodríguez, former partner of the former Transport minister José Luis Ábalos.
It was Zaldívar himself who asked the case instructor, Ismael Moreno, to appear as an accused person voluntarily, “in order to be able to complete, specify, and clarify the facts”.
A day later, on November 18, he will have to make a statement: the former government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, the first person charged in the case in which the Audiencia Nacional judge María Tardón examines the massive entry of people from Morocco to the autonomous city at the end of last July.
The major cases of the Audiencia Nacional and the rescue of Plus Ultra
On November 19, the spotlight will shift to the 'Plus Ultra case'. That day, José Ángel Partearroyo, former director of Participadas of the State Company for Industrial Participations (SEPI), and Félix Martín, former chief financial officer of the airline, are scheduled as witnesses.
Both will appear before the investigating judge, José Luis Calama, who is investigating the alleged network of influence peddling that would have operated around the rescue of 53 million euros granted by the Government to Plus Ultra during the pandemic.
In the second week of the campaign, on November 24, much of the media attention will be focused. On that day, the judge of the National Court (Audiencia Nacional) who is handling the case 'Leire Díez' will take a statement from the former Venezuelan deputy minister Nervis Villalobos as an accused person.
Villalobos will appear at the judicial headquarters after the Central Civil Registry has sent the magistrate Santiago Pedraz documentation regarding alleged irregularities in the naturalization file of the former senior official of Hugo Chávez, who obtained Spanish nationality under the so-called "law of grandchildren," the provision of the Law on Democratic Memory that allows the naturalization of descendants of exiles.
On that same day, the judge will hear as a witness Cintia Rocho, allegedly linked to a narcotics trafficking clan from Badajoz. Apparently, the former judge Luis Sáenz de Tejada, who is being investigated in the case, would have told her about "eliminating" the judge Beatriz Biedma, who is responsible for the investigation into David Sánchez, the brother of the President of the Government.
In this procedure, Pedraz is investigating an alleged plot intended to destabilize judicial proceedings that affect the PSOE, the Executive, and family members of President Pedro Sánchez, which would have been headed by former socialist leader Santos Cerdán and coordinated by former socialist member Leire Díez.
Also on November 24, at the courts in Plaza de Castilla, the appearance of several witnesses in the case concerning the rescue of Air Europa has been set, including Sara Aagesen and Íñigo Errejón, as well as Partearroyo and the current director of the Economic Office and G20 of the Presidency of the Government, Manuel de la Rocha, among others.
On November 23, it is scheduled that the judge will take statements as witnesses from the former Secretary of State for Economy and Business Support, Ana de la Cueva, today the chairwoman of Patrimonio Nacional, and from the director of the National Agency for Quality Assessment, Pilar Paneque, among other people.
The investigation, which is being carried out in a court in Madrid, focuses on possible irregularities in the 475 million euro loan that the Government granted to Air Europa in November 2020.
The Supreme Court and the external vote for the "law of grandchildren"
Meanwhile, during these two weeks, the Supreme Court (TS) will continue studying the electoral consequences of the “law on grandchildren”, after refusing to suspend the right to vote of the children of those who were naturalized through that route, who will finally be able to take part in the elections.
The justices have maintained, however, the suspension of suffrage for the “grandchildren” residing abroad who have not been able to show that they are descendants of exiles, a measure agreed in September and ratified in October and again in November.
With regard to the children, the court rejected extending the suspension for “legal certainty and electoral stability” due to the proximity of the elections, although it reiterated the “alleged irregularities with which, apparently, their parents have been able to access the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA)”.
The Supreme Court recalled that the suspension of voting for those naturalized under the “law on grandchildren” was adopted on September 10, “long before the early dissolution of the Cortes Generales and the consequent call for general elections”, and that this decision was confirmed “within a time still appropriate, possible, before the start of the electoral period”.
“On the contrary,” it stressed, the request to extend the suspension to voting by the children, “which could have been raised earlier, is before us at a very different moment, after more than half of the electoral period has passed, one week before the start of the electoral campaign and, with regard to the vote of electors enrolled in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA), two weeks before the start of the deposit of the vote in the ballot box at the consulates”.
In the opinion of the Chamber, “to initiate now a process of review of the CERA, in addition to the questions it raises regarding the material possibility of effective execution within the brief time frame that exists up to the date of voting and its counting, is contrary to the requirements arising from the principles of legal certainty and electoral stability”.
The Chamber for Contentious-Administrative Matters also highlighted that, “according to official data, the figure for this group, 189,678 people, is higher than that of the recipients of the precautionary suspension already agreed, 162,454 people (163,355, less the 901 who provided consular certification and for whom the suspension does not apply)”.
The amnesty for Puigdemont, pending before the Supreme Court
On the other hand, the high court must still rule on the application of the amnesty to Catalonia’s former president and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, after the Constitutional Court ordered that the pardon be extended to the crime of embezzlement for which he is being prosecuted and after the instructor of the 'procés', Pablo Llarena, considered it to be amnestiable.
The Criminal Chamber that tried the 'procés' has already applied the amnesty to the former vice president of the Generalitat, Oriol Junqueras, and to former councillors such as Jordi Turull, Toni Comín, Lluís Puig, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa.