The Prosecutor's Office will have to decide whether to investigate the Bildu lists with 44 convicted of terrorism
The National Court Prosecutor's Office is studying the complaint filed by Dignity and Justice referring to the 44 Bildu candidates for the upcoming municipal elections who were convicted of terrorism, seven of them for blood crimes.
In its letter, the association demands that the Public Ministry open investigative proceedings to verify if the terms of the sentences imposed on them allow them to go on the lists or if any of them continue to be disqualified.
“It is the duty and obligation of the Rule of Law to be especially cautious and scrupulous in complying with the legally demanded requirements to be able to run as candidates in an election,” says the letter from the association chaired by Daniel Portero, “and therefore, to proceed to the investigation of the facts contained in this complaint, aimed at determining whether or not the forty-three candidates convicted of terrorism have served their sentence of absolute or special disqualification for employment or public office imposed by a final sentence”.
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The Prosecutor's Office, for the moment, has limited itself to indicating that it has registered the complaint filed on Thursday. “It has been registered, and after its analysis, the appropriate decision will be made, regarding the opening or not of pre-trial investigation proceedings,” the Prosecutor's Office directed by Jesús Alonso has communicated.
Most likely, even if the cases end up being studied, there will be no consequences.. From the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), which has been monitoring the presence of convicted persons on electoral lists for years, it is considered that the candidates questioned have complied with the limitations to be candidates. Both those that accompany the prison sentence itself and those that derive from special disqualifications for public office.
“The 44 have complied with the absolute disqualifications set during the time of the sentence and the special ones, those who have them, for public office, so they do not incur causes of ineligibility,” says AVT lawyer Carmen Ladrón de Guevara.
The review of the lawyer for the victims updated this Friday concludes that, of the 44 cases, in 26 the disqualification has already been fulfilled or was not imposed. In three French convictions, this limitation to be a candidate or public office was not included either.. In another 14 cases it has not been possible to count on the sentence, but due to the date of the sentence and the time elapsed, it is considered very probable that the eventual disqualification has been fulfilled..
Finally, there is a case of the defendants in which there is no sentence, so in reality the convicted on the lists are 43. In the case of Sonia Respaldiza, what is recorded is her appearance in papers belonging to the leadership of ETA. Her role as promoter of Sortu -the core of Bildu- was used in 2011 by the Prosecutor's Office and the Government to urge the banning of that party. The petition was accepted by the Supreme Court but revoked by the Constitutional Court.
“Qualitative leap”
The AVT lawyer recalls that in the previous municipal elections Bildu presented 18 candidates with previous convictions, one of them with blood crimes. This means that what happened now represents “a considerable qualitative and quantitative leap”.
On paper, the repeated inclusion of those convicted of terrorism on the lists is one of the elements that the Party Law contemplates for the illegalization of a party. Vox has registered this Friday a petition in Congress to urge the Government to declare EH Bildu illegal and force the rest of the parties to take a position on the illegalization of the abertzale formation.
Bildu has five seats in Congress and this legislature has been a fundamental partner for the stability of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez.
The presence of former terrorists in the candidacies was publicly denounced on Tuesday by the group of Victims of Terrorism (Covite) chaired by Consuelo Ordóñez, sister of the PP councilor murdered by ETA in 1995 Gregorio Ordóñez.
When denouncing what happened with the lists, Ordóñez urged public officials to guarantee “minimum political and ethical principles” in the appointment of candidates, stating that “anyone convicted of terrorism, even if they have served their sentence, should be obliged to repudiate publicly his criminal past if he wants to exercise a public function”. In his opinion, otherwise it would be becoming “democratic referents precisely those who have done the most to destroy democracy, attacking the life and physical and moral integrity of thousands of people.”