- Marlaska now says that he did not "impute anything" to Pérez de los Cobos and sees "doubts of law" in the sentence of the Supreme Court
- Editorial An "inadmissible interference" that Marlaska aggravates with snares
Neither Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska nor the members of his leadership like the Senate. Failed in Congress, he and his senior officials flee the upper house and with the help of the PSOE systematically dodge all requests for appearance from the different parliamentary groups. For six months the Interior Commission has not substantiated calls beyond the inescapable to process bills or proposals of law despite the 93 requests for assistance from senior Interior officials that have not been addressed.
The latest events related to the ministry – the unappealable sentence of the Supreme Court on the dismissal of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos and the resignation, just a few days earlier, of the general director of the Civil Guard, María Gámez, after her husband was charged in a corruption case – have not been sufficient reasons for the requests for appearances to be accepted.
The Popular Party has registered a request for Gamez to go to the Chamber but it will not be attended. The Bureau of the committee will vote on it at the end of Holy Week but no one doubts that the result will be negative. On this occasion, unlike previous requests, the argument will be solid: Gámez no longer has any connection with Interior and, consequently, is not obliged to meet the request of an ordinary parliamentary commission, something different would be if it were a commission of inquiry.
The parliamentary groups consider amortized not only the attendance of Gámez but also that of any other high representative of the Ministry in view of the lack of interest they have shown to date to appear in the Senate.
From the Popular Party express their indignation at what they interpret a "joke" of the department directed by Grande-Marlaska with the coverage of the Socialists because the only appearance that has finally obtained the approval of the majority of the PSOE in the Bureau of the Commission, last week, has been that of the general director of Civil Protection, Leonardo Marcos, to inform, on the 17th, of the policy of his service with an eye on Horizon 2035 and of the efforts and deployment carried out in front of the storm Filomena that hit Spain between January 6 and 11, 2021.
The petition was registered by the PP in January 2021 and will now be carried out with more than two years of delay to account for a punctual meteorological phenomenon. Many of the groups in the chamber have already announced that they will not attend it.
On the contrary, requests to appear related to the three judgments in the Pérez de los Cobos case have remained in the drawer; with the serious events of the Vallla de Melilla that resulted in more than twenty deaths and caused the disapproval of Marlaska in Congress; with the waves of immigrants in the Canary Islands; with the transfer to Navarra of the competences of the Civil Guard of Traffic or with the lack of means at airports, mainly to control the flow of travelers during the pandemic.
None of these requests presented by different parliamentary forces in the Senate has obtained the green light so far. The Socialists, the majority in the Bureau of the commission, stop them all to avoid a control that the Ministry of the Interior does not want.
The last sessions of the Senate Interior Committee were held on October 26 and September 13, 2022. The first of them to rule on the bill on Explosives Precursors and, the second, to fill the vacancy of the second vice presidency of the commission.
You have to go back to November 25, 2021 to find the last occasion on which a senior official of the Ministry appeared. On that occasion it was the then director of the Civil Guard, María Gámez, who went at the initiative of the Government itself to report on the actions of the Civil Guard in relation to the demographic challenge.
To the appearance were added the petitions presented by the groups of the Chamber in relation to, among other matters, the cessation of Pérez de los Cobos that had occurred eight months earlier or with the participation of Gámez herself in PSOE rallies. Only the PP accumulated 12 requests for appearance none of which had been attended.
The former director of the Civil Guard avoided providing any information of interest to the senators, limited herself to emphasizing that the minister has the right to make his team with people he trusts and ironizing with the consideration of "matter of State" that was intended to give to the dismissal of Pérez de los Cobos.
By then, the National Court had given the reason to the Ministry considering legal the dismissal of the head of the Command of the Civil Guard of Madrid. Gámez clung to this, assuming that the interest shown in this matter by the opposition forces was "merely political to damage the government." And he added bluntly: "I'm not going to talk about this matter."
Now, the Supreme Court has ruled against the dismissal of the command of the Civil Guard ordered by Marlaska and executed by Gámez considering it "illegal" and an example of "misuse of power" and the one who was director of the Civil Guard has resigned after her husband was charged in a corruption case.
- Senate
- PP
- PSOE
- Supreme Court
- Fernando Grande-Marlaska
- National Court
- Add
- Ministry of the Interior
- Navarre
- Justice
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