The Supreme Court dismisses the appeal of Colonel Sánchez Corbí against the sentence that endorsed his dismissal as head of the UCO

Confirms the decision of the National High Court to consider the cessation adjusted to Law

MADRID, 20 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed by Colonel Manuel Sánchez Corbí against the ruling of the National Court that considered his dismissal as head of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, agreed by the Ministry of Security State on August 1, 2018, due to loss of trust.

This Tuesday the ruling of the magistrates has been announced, but it will not be until the next few days when the sentence with the arguments will be made public.

The Fourth Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber has ruled after last February it admitted Sánchez Corbí's appeal for processing --against the criteria of the State Attorney's Office-- and agreed to study the case on the understanding that it had appealing interest to establish whether decisions relating to freely appointed positions must be motivated or not.

The court has debated on Tuesday how the dismissal of freely appointed public officials should be motivated. Although in February the magistrates warned that this matter had already been addressed previously by the Supreme Court, they specified that it was necessary to "confirm, clarify or specify the existing doctrine."

The decision of the Supreme Court takes place four years after Sánchez Corbí was dismissed from his post by the Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska for loss of confidence, once the colonel sent an email to his subordinates in which he explained that he had to stop the operations linked to the reserved funds item because it had been frozen with the arrival of the new ministerial team.

The colonel, in his brief preparing the appeal, alleged that several articles of the Common Administrative Procedure of Public Administrations and of the Spanish Constitution had been violated regarding the duty to motivate termination of this type of position and understood that it was applicable to the Civil Guard . He assured that his dismissal covered "a sanction" that had been imposed "unfairly, totally and absolutely disregarding the legally established procedure."

Sánchez Corbí went to the Supreme Court after the National High Court rejected his appeal against the judgment of the Central Contentious Court Number 3, which confirmed that the dismissal was in accordance with the law and that the loss of trust had nothing to do with the personal relationships of the interveners.

The ruling of the High Court may affect the case of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, whose dismissal occurred in similar terms. He took to the Supreme Court the decision of the Ministry of the Interior to remove him from office when his subordinates were investigating - under the direction of a judge - the possible relationship of the 8M 2020 demonstration with the start of coronavirus infections.