On Monday afternoon in La Moncloa, Felix Bolaños proposed to Teresa Perramato to become the fourth state prosecutor. A prosecutor with 35 years of experience and considered one of the leading promoters of judicial specialization in the fight against violence against women, the government’s chosen one to succeed Álvaro García Ortiz was summoned to the La Moncloa complex and accepted the offer of the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, to whom Pedro Sánchez entrusted the task after learning four days ago of the Supreme Court’s conviction of García Ortiz.
The last 20 North marked the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death until at 1:59 p.m., the Supreme Court unleashed an unprecedented political earthquake. The Second Criminal Court sentenced García Ortiz to two years in prison for the crime of disclosing secrets. In addition, it imposed a fine of 7,200 euros and paid compensation of 10,000 euros to Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the courts for fraud against the Ministry of the Treasury. He surprised referee Pedro Sanchez upon his return from Ceuta, where he had just presided over the presentation ceremony of the new naval station. The news came while he was flying by helicopter between Ceuta and Malaga, and he learned about it when he landed. The president had defended the prosecutor’s “innocence” in an interview with El Pais newspaper before the start of the trial. Sánchez spoke to his closest team, flew to Madrid, and as he went directly to Congress, he made the decision to speak to his hard-line core, including Bolaños: the reaction would be moderate, despite the discontent of the progressive world.
The government responds at 2:42 p.m., expressing its respect for the ruling but clarifying that it does not share it, and announcing that “in the coming days” the process of appointing a “new” public prosecutor will begin. The commitment is that he “will be a person of the highest professional standing in the field of law.” At 4:20 p.m. Felix Bolaños delivers an institutional statement from the Congregation of La Moncloa calling for calm for those who do not agree with the ruling. He points out that “disagreement with this ruling cannot lead to a lack of confidence in justice. Spain is a state of law and there are resources for those who disagree with the ruling.”
That same afternoon, while Sanchez was attending a screening of the fictional series in Congress Anatomy of a moment Based on the novel by Javier Cercas, where he asserts that “democracy must be defended against those who believe they can protect it,” Bolaños springs into action and launches the movement to succeed García Ortiz. The minister frees up his agenda, with the exception of attending the Royal Palace and Congress on Friday to attend the events organizing half a century of the restoration of the monarchy. Immediately afterwards, Sanchez begins a four-day tour outside Spain that takes him first to the G20 summit in South Africa and then to the summit between the European Union and the African Union in Angola. Despite the distance and the exhausting agenda, the President will be aware from the first minute of every relevant step in the process. The dialogue with Bolaños will be permanent. “He was constantly at the top. It was as if he had never left and was not more than 10,000 kilometers away,” sums up La Moncloa. Sánchez took advantage of every gap in the two summits, every moment in the hotels, to be on top of the decision and the political environment in Spain with a very difficult train wreck between the government and the Supreme Court. The president ordered one of the people he trusted most, Minister Oscar López, to go to the confrontation with the harshest version, while reserving the more institutional version for himself and Bolaños.
While Sanchez advocates for a just peace for Ukraine in Johannesburg, Bolaños locks himself in his office in La Moncloa. The choice is not accidental. It is a much more secretive space than the Ministry of Justice headquarters in central Madrid. The Minister is dedicated to the task of creating a progressive image, preferably a woman, that generates a consensus that does not raise doubts and contributes to overcoming the institutional crisis surrounding the decision of the Supreme Court, which has been strongly criticized by the Left among other reasons because the ruling is still unwritten. Between Thursday and Monday, Bolaños will hold a hundred meetings and phone conversations with numerous prosecutors and judges, conservatives and progressives alike. Sources familiar with these communications explain that Bolaños decided to gather many opinions, not just progressive ones, in order to get the proposal right. “The goal is to break the dynamics of the blocks, to get out of this fracture picture,” executive sources explain. Sanchez, from South Africa, also receives a large number of letters and calls from collaborators and people he listens to regularly who offer their opinions on the ideal profile of the new prosecutor.
Paramate rises rapidly in solution. Bolaños notes how “practically everyone” he talks to asks him about the best option in a tax career, and that Peramatu’s name “always comes up,” according to government sources. “It was a general consensus,” they say in La Moncloa. “There were people who gave one name, people who gave two names, people who gave more, but Peramatu was always an option on the table.”
They explained in the government that “his election is the result of a dialogue with many people.” One of the decisions that must be made is whether the person relieving Garcia Ortiz “comes from within the (prosecutor) profession or from outside it.” There are arguments on the table one way or the other, but the government wants to deliver a message of “support and confidence” to the tax race. Choose A Intruder It meant puncturing the image of the prosecutor’s office, which before the ruling had already suffered the cost of its reputation after a year with its chief official in the eye of the hurricane. They say in La Moncloa: “It would have been an unfair message that we did not believe in, no matter how very marked differences between the prosecutors in the trial, but we did not want to give the message of the status of someone from outside the race. We favored someone from the race to enhance confidence and self-esteem in the judicial profession after the trial after the reputational cost.”
The Minister of the Presidency and Justice concluded over the weekend that Peramatu had “the respect of everyone”, whether progressive or conservative. Her appointment as president of the Union of Progressive Prosecutors (UPF) does not punish her. Bolaños relays all the information to Sánchez, who gives his approval, although he orders that the decision not be known until his return to Spain.
Although no one confirmed this at the time, everything indicated that the new Public Prosecutor would be named in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. This is what El Pais newspaper published on Sunday. There is talk of a quick fix to close the wound and hit the table with a clearly progressive plaintiff. But in order to achieve that, there is a key step missing: Garcia Ortiz must resign before Tuesday. The ruling has not been revised, so it remains the Attorney General for all purposes. It is in the government’s interest for him to resign, and Ortiz takes office on Sunday. The decision had already been made that night and the letter written, although it would be announced on Monday morning. That afternoon, the next step was taken: informing Paramtu that this was the government’s preference. Under great secrecy, the public prosecutor is summoned to the La Moncloa complex. Bolaños offers him the position and Peramatu accepts. The last hours of the operation take place in great secrecy.
Bolaños speaks with Sanchez, who is in Luanda, the Angolan capital, about an eight-hour flight from Madrid. The president gives his approval. Bolaños then communicated the decision to Yolanda Díaz, second vice president and leader of SUMAR, the minority coalition partner. La Moncloa is preparing to inform first thing Tuesday morning who his bet is. But we have to wait for Sanchez to arrive in Madrid to maintain his fitness. The government at the time indicated that the president would resolve the matter once he arrived in La Moncloa. In fact, this will not be the case. Everything is ready and just one call is enough to activate the entire mechanism.
Sanchez landed at 6:00 a.m. at Torrejon Air Base and a few minutes later boarded a helicopter waiting at the foot of the plane to take him to La Moncloa. When he gets to his office, everything starts moving. The government communicates the decision at 7:17, when the journalists who accompanied Sanchez on the plane left the air base. Once communicated, Sánchez dispatches Bolaños and prepares to head the Council of Ministers at 9:30. The plenary session of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) convenes on Wednesday and gives its unanimous – but non-binding – endorsement of Peramatu as the next state prosecutor to replace García Ortiz. After the CGPJ report, the future head of the Public Ministry will appear in Congress. After an intense battle, there is now a slight calm: neither the People’s Party nor the conservative unions of judges and prosecutors issue a single criticism. The war between the government and a very important sector of the judges continues, but the arrival of a new prosecutor with an impeccable record seems to have at least opened a truce. No one knows how long it will last.