Isabel Diaz Ayuso resisted Spanish television and took legal action against the “Mañaneros” program, after refusing to rectify the information relating to the Madrid Barwhich the Community considered to be “partial and not in conformity with the … the truth”. The program linked a subsidy from the regional government to the bar with its prosecution role in the trial against the former State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz.
“We demand the immediate rectification of the information published by your media because it is biased and does not correspond to the truth, reserving the right to undertake any actions that may correspond to us in defense of the institution of the Community of Madrid,” warned the advisor to the Presidency and spokesperson for the regional government, Miguel Ángel García, in a letter he sent to the director of “Mañaneros” at the beginning of this month. As the rectification did not take place, the Government of the Community of Madrid responded to his warning and took legal action.
“Regarding the information published today in your program regarding the payment of a subsidy to the Illustrious Madrid Bar Association in connection with the complaint, trial and conviction of the Attorney General of the State, I will make the following considerations,” the advisor said in his letter. “The Community of Madrid respects the legal obligation reflected in Article 119 of the Spanish Constitution of the right to free legal assistance. The law itself which governs this constitutional mandate stipulates that it is the autonomous communities which assume, in the exercise of their competences, the financing of this service and that it is up to the professional associations of the legal profession and the prosecution to organize and provide it.
The councilor recalls that the free legal assistance and relief service “has been offered and paid for to professional associations, including the Illustrious College of Lawyers of Madrid, since the Community of Madrid assumed its competence in matters of justice in 2003”.
Previously, adds the advisor, the payment was made by the Ministry of Justice itself, which maintains an allocation of more than 48 million from the General Council of Spanish Lawyers to cover expenses related to the provision of these services in the territory of the Ministry (Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura, Murcia, Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla).
Ayuso’s number two in the Madrid regional government warns that “any attempt to link the payment of free legal assistance services to legal and prosecutorial professionals to another type of circumstance only responds to a desire to misinform and confuse citizens, to try to discredit the Community of Madrid and the illustrious Madrid Bar and to try to justify the actions of the State Attorney General, found guilty of breaking the law.”
Regarding the ICAM university center attached to the Complutense University of Madrid, the advisor explains that its treatment began in 2023 and has “scrupulously complied with the regulations in force”.
“The proposal has all the favorable reports and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities itself has already granted it the necessary center code so that it can be incorporated in the diploma reports as a higher education center attached to the UCM.”
About The Author
