The State attorney issued in April a report, who has accessed THE COUNTRY, where he alerted that “would have no justification” legal a free legal aid as granted in the time of the PP to companies in the Gürtel for his defense at the trial. The Ministry of Justice has opened an investigation to clarify the payments in the previous stage to the attorneys office of involved in the network of corruption, that ended with the conviction of the own PP.
In a report of April 30, the State bar warned that it is irregular to finance the court-appointed attorney limited companies. The law excludes these companies from the legal aid, reserved only to natural persons and certain legal entities —such as foundations and associations of public utility— that lack the means to afford their defense. According to the relationship of payments to which you accessed this newspaper, the Ministry of Justice at the stage of Rafael Catalá (PP) paid for the defense of 11 limited partnerships involved in the plot Gürtel.
According to the argumentation of the document of the legal profession of the State, if these companies in the Gürtel are legal persons distinct from those sanctioned by the law, as well as they are, they should not have obtained this benefit, so that would have to be left without effect the temporary appointments of lawyers —elected by the College of Lawyers of Madrid (ICAM), who did not want to respond to the questions of THE COUNTRY—. “The funding of the legal assistance provided to the legal persons accused in the case would have no justification in the framework of the regulations issued for the development of article 119 of the Constitution”, remacha, after considering “likely” that it fails to meet the standard.
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This report of the State bar was developed after that, after the change of Government, the socialist government found it had exceeded the cap of 570,000 euros fixed in a convention signed in 2016, with the General Council of the bar and the ICAM to raise the subsidy that they will receive court-appointed attorneys in the case Gürtel, due to its special complexity and dimension. As reported in a note in 2018, the new Justice team discovered that were transferred 1.1 million for these defences through mechanisms of legal aid and, then, halted payments to consider that the excess was not “legal coverage” and ordered her reinstated. What did the General Council of the bar.
More than 800,000 euros
At that time, the ministry began to study how to extend the convention —validated in their day-to-day Advocacy, although it is not specified that it was going to pay for the defenses of limited companies— to pay for the minutes pending. And commissioned a report to the State attorney to get his approval, as contained in the document itself, which gave the green light to its renewal provided that it be deleted the possibility of paying to the lawyer of these business. Because that is where were no irregularities, and it is when they do arise suspicion. In addition, the ministry in the time of the PP also paid for the construction of the defenses of the other defendants that allegedly did not have recognized this right, as the leader of the plot, Francisco Correa, and the mayor of Majadahonda, Guillermo Ortega (PP). According to the relationship of payments, the amount under suspicion exceeds, at least, 800.000 euros.
The opposition manifested by the Intervention of the prosecutor
in Addition to State Advocacy, the Intervention of the prosecutor also objected to the convention of 2016 (and its expansion) that blamed the exceptionality of the free legal assistance of the case Gürtel. In an internal document obtained by this newspaper, the body underlines that the limited partnerships were charged in the plot may not enjoy this benefit: “without legal protection”. To questions from this newspaper, the current team of the Ministry of Justice said last week that since the arrival of Dolores Delgado the portfolio has not allocated a single euro to this agreement, and that it has opened an internal investigation to reconstruct the record that validated these fertilisers of money. In addition, he insisted that, if it detects any indication of a crime, will take the case to the State Attorney General’s office. A step that Citizens already asked to give this Sunday. Edmundo Bal, exabogado of the State, noted that it would be a crime of embezzlement to be used “money from all to benefit certain persons who were not entitled to legal aid”.
