Álvarez de Toledo says that the sanction of the PP is “unconstitutional” and appeals it

In his appeal, filed on the same Kings day and collected by EP, Álvarez de Toledo emphasizes that the fine violates two articles of the Constitution: on the one hand, 67.2, which states that “the members of the Cortes Generales will not be bound by imperative mandate” and, on the other, 79.3, “which ratifies it when it notices that the vote of the deputies and senators is personal and cannot be delegated “.

“The jibarization of the deputy, the suppression of their freedom and their total submission to partisan discipline it is constitutionally inadmissible and harmful to parliamentary health because it ends up reducing representative democracy, which the Constitution itself protects and organizes, to a set of grimaces, “he says.

And that is what maintains that the Board of Directors of the PP has taken for granted when sanctioning him: “that the deputies are subject to an imperative mandate always and in all circumstances, including secret votes, that we have no criteria or margin of autonomy or freedom and that we are only here to express with voice or gesture – pressing a green, red or yellow button – the slogans of the party leadership. “” That we are – he summarizes – an army of clones without conscience, at the service of increasingly Caesarist domes “.

Vices of unconstitutionality

In his writing, he insists that the statutes of the Parliamentary Group “do not conform” to the universal rule that “no one can be convicted without a law that publicly classifies their conduct as punishable “because” they have never been published in any of the multiple ways that ensure knowledge of a legal norm, not even by specific recipients, that is, the PP deputies.

“The Statutes are veiled by secrecy. They are not freely accessible and neither has anyone provided the deputies with an authenticated copy, “says Álvarez de Toledo to denounce that she has been” charged and threatened with sanction “by virtue of a rule that was” secret “at the time it was adopted.

“The fact that the statutes have not received publicity is enough to support the conclusion that strictly speaking, they lack a legal requirement and, of course, of coercive force, ‘he argues. Therefore, everything that has been done in this case – from the agreement to initiate the file to the sanctioning resolution – is radically null. ”

It also adds that the statutes they suffer from “vices” that, in their opinion, prevent them from being considered a legally valid norm because, from the outset, they violate the principle of “equality of arms” in terms of the deadlines for acting of the investigator and the case file, which, as he points out, implies “a violation of article 24 of the Constitution.” Said article speaks of the right to obtain the effective protection of judges and courts in the exercise of their rights and legitimate interests, without, in any case, being defenseless “.

Lack of tact or will to helplessness?

In his specific case, he complains that “the disproportion is even greater” because he received the notification of the resolution during the Christmas holidays (December 30 at 10:30 p.m.). “Lack of tact or willingness to provoke helplessness?“, it is raised.

The number one of the PP for Barcelona also cites as another “vice of unconstitutionality” of the PP statutes that the principle of proportionality is not respected, as there is no difference, as indicated, between the sanction corresponding to serious misconduct – with the that she has been sanctioned – and very serious, while in both cases the fine is 500 to 700 euros. “Inexplicable,” he says.

And he also questions that not voting in plenary session an initiative of the PP is sanctioned with a fine of 300 euros and, instead, not respecting group discipline in voting in plenary session is punished with between 500 and 700 euros, “even when that action is translated, as in this case, in a blank vote whose practical effects are identical to those of an omission “.

In his appeal, Álvarez de Toledo again denounces that the position of the PP before “important” votesLike the election of the magistrates to the TC, it was not defined in a previous meeting like the deputies, as the statutes indicate. “The reality is that there was only order and command,” he sums up, insisting that “under these conditions no deputy can be sanctioned.”

The political line of the PP

In its text, the popular exporter insists, as it did in its brief of allegations, that it cast its blank vote in the election of the TC magistrates “in strict ideological coherence“with the principles and basic lines of the electoral program with which the PP stood in the April 2019 elections and with the” political line “set by the current party leaders. That program, as he recalls, the depoliticization of justice and the strengthening of institutions.

“The blank vote is a decision that I claim and that cannot be sanctioned without falling into serious internal and external contradictions –he argues– Sanctioning me would imply violating the Constitution and legal procedures, violating the group’s current statutes, undermining the autonomy of the deputy, frustrate democratic regeneration and challenge the ideology of the PP“.

And he adds that “nothing, not even a fine” will be able to convince her that there is a contradiction between the defense of the depoliticization of justice – and the blank vote for an agreement that, in her opinion, “politicizes” the Constitutional Court.

For all these reasons, the PP parliamentary exporter begs that its appeal be raised against the resolution that the Board of Directors adopted on December 30 so that it annul the fine appealed for being “contrary to law”.