Podemos will demand responsibilities from Batet if the TC censures the withdrawal of Alberto Rodríguez from the seat

MADRID, 22 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

United We Can will demand political responsibilities from the president of Congress, the socialist Meritxell Batet, if the Constitutional Court finally agrees with Alberto Rodríguez and questions the withdrawal of his seat after being condemned by the Supreme Court.

This has been assured to Europa Press by the co-spokesperson of the Podemos leadership and member of the Congressional Bureau, Javier Sánchez Serna, who recalls that his party already criticized that decision when it was adopted.

"Something very serious was done by depriving a deputy of his rights without having a sentence that endorsed that decision," he points out. democratic outrage and if finally the ruling of the Constitutional Court agrees with him and considers that what was done was irregular, if not illegal, we believe that political responsibilities should be assumed".

It was on October 22, 2021 when Batet issued an agreement informing Rodríguez that he had ordered his replacement as a member of the Lower House in execution of the Supreme Court resolutions and in accordance with the interpretation that the court itself had made. on the application of the accessory penalty attached to the conviction.

It should be remembered that the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court had sentenced him 14 days earlier --on October 6-- to a prison sentence of one month and fifteen days as the author of a crime of attack on agents of the authority, with the highly qualified mitigating factor of undue delay, for kicking a police officer during a demonstration that took place in 2014 in La Laguna (Tenerife). That prison sentence was replaced in the same resolution by a fine of 90 days with a daily fee of 6 euros (in total, 540 euros).

The sentence carried the accessory of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage, and the high court clarified that the replacement of the prison sentence by the fine did not affect the accessory penalty.

After analyzing the two appeals for amparo filed by Rodríguez's defense before the Constitutional Court --one for the conviction and the other for the loss of the seat--, the Prosecutor's Office of this court has reported in favor of granting him the amparo for Batet's decision to get him out of the hemicycle.

Prosecutor Pedro Crespo considers that protection should be granted because "his fundamental right recognized in article 23.2 of the Spanish Constitution (CE), in relation to article 23.1, to remain in a representative public position and not be removed from it if not for the causes and in accordance with the legally established procedures".

In this sense, the prosecutor's report, although it denies the allegation made by Rodríguez that Batet invented the "non-criminal consequence" of the Supreme Court ruling, does believe that there was room for the president of Congress to carry out another interpretation of the law, aiming at the mere suspension of the rights as a deputy.