Ribera criticizes Judge García Castellón’s “desire” to speak out in “sensitive political moments”

The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has criticized that the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón has “a certain inclination” to speak out in “sensitive political moments”, after the judge insisted on the thesis terrorist in the ‘Tsunami Democràtic’ case, in which he is investigating the former Catalan president and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, for an alleged crime of terrorism. “I would be very cautious regarding the way in which this judge was speaking, who, as I say, has accustomed us to always leaning in this same direction, which obviously has an important political implication and usually comes up in political moments sensitive”, Ribera assured this Friday in statements to TVE, collected by Europa Press. She did so when asked about her opinion about the judge’s dismissal of the appeal presented by the Prosecutor’s Office against his decision to send the ‘Democratic Tsunami’ case to the Supreme Court to investigate the crime of terrorism in the Puigdemont case. , the ERC leader Marta Rovira and ten other people, while maintaining that the events were terrorism. Ribera began her response by stating that it is “very important” to respect the separation of powers as one of the fundamental principles of coexistence and the Constitution, including respect for the Judiciary, judges and magistrates. But “that does not prevent us from seeing,” continued the third vice president, “that there are some people who hold this institutional representation of the Judiciary who have a certain desire to always speak in the same direction and at a particularly opportune moment regarding what, for the most part, The rest tend to be the pronouncements of other colleagues within the exercise of that Judicial Power.” In response to this response, and when asked if she was accusing García Castellón of being guided by political criteria, Ribera indicated that he is a judge who “always is very correct in the sensitivity of dates” and pointed out that “he must motivate, explain ” his pronouncement. “We have to wait and see what happens,” she added. And to the question of whether he considers it a case of ‘lawfare’, of judicial persecution for political reasons, Ribera has argued that it is “essential” to understand that not only the exercise of the Judicial Power matters, but also “the forms and motivations.” . “But also this assessment of opportunity regarding the moment in which this information comes to light is relevant,” Ribera stressed in reference to García Castellón and in the framework of the processing of the amnesty law for those involved in the Catalan independence process. .