• Justice The "gender harassment" of a prosecutor with high-risk pregnancy: "Before you leave, you have to dispatch all the pending work"

The chief prosecutor of Toledo, Antonio Huélamo Buendía, denied having given the order to continue working to the prosecutor who was going to take medical leave for having a high-risk pregnancy. Specifically, the prosecutor stated that he "did not tell" his subordinate that he had to dispatch all the cases he had pending even if he was on leave due to medical prescription.

However, the audios unveiled yesterday by EL MUNDO show that the prosecutor lied since he repeatedly ordered on June 17, 2021 the sanctioned prosecutor that, despite being on leave, she continued working at home because "when someone has a leave, the work that has entered him before the leave has to be done until he is dispatched". He assured that it was the "norm" in his Prosecutor's Office.

According to the statement that Huélamo Buendía gave to the investigating prosecutor of the Supreme CourtJosé Luis Bueren - within the framework of the disciplinary file that was opened to the prosecutor for unjustified delays in the processing of the procedures that had corresponded to him to resolve in the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Toledo - the chief prosecutor denied having pressured her to continue working under a clearly illegal formula. Huélamo Buendía appeared as a witness, that is, with an obligation to tell the truth.

During the interrogation, to which this newspaper has had access, the chief prosecutor of Toledo admitted that before his subordinate informed him of the pregnancy and discharged "he had not communicated any malpractice on his part" to the Tax Inspection although he indicated that "he had spoken with her that there was an accumulation of matters." However, he assured that before that day "he had not sent any communication to the Inspectorate", a body dependent on the Attorney General of the State, responsible for compliance with the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

On the other hand, throughout his statement, the chief prosecutor stated that he did not remember telling the prosecutor that "her lot" should be carried by two prosecutors, as it entailed an overload of work. On the other hand, during the conversation that both had a day before the subordinate left medical leave, the prosecutor admitted to having maintained the following: "It is a lot that is very loaded to be carried by a single prosecutor." Then, the pregnant prosecutor pointed out that it was a batch of matters that "could not be carried by a single person", to which his boss replied "yes" but told him that "it was not his fault that a global pandemic was coming", in reference to the fact that at first that work assignment was made provisionally before the Covid-19 health crisis broke out.

In July 2021, when the prosecutor was already on medical leave (she left without dispatching the pending matters) her boss informed the Tax Inspectorate, led by inspector María Antonia Sanz, of delays in the processing of various judicial files of the pregnant woman. On 19 of 2022, the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, signed the decree of sanction for a serious offense to the prosecutor, fined with the payment of 1500 euros. The aforementioned decree states that at the date of her dismissal the prosecutor had pending resolution of 28 civil cases and 168 criminal matters, although she admitted that most of the cases were accumulated in the last four months (coinciding with the gestation period).

The prosecutor then appealed to the Ministry of Justice against the sanction imposed. In that appeal, she alleged "special discrimination on grounds of pregnancy" and maintained that the fine imposed was a "retaliation" for having refused "to comply with the illegal order of her hierarchical superior: to continue working from home despite being on leave due to a risky pregnancy".

The Ministry led by Pilar Llop dismissed her appeal and, consequently, the prosecutor has now challenged before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court the sanctioning decree signed by the State Attorney General. It requests that it be annulled.

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