Madrid (EFE) Judicial Police” because the judge in the 8M case gave “the express order” of “absolute confidentiality”.
The Chamber of Administrative Litigation has notified this Thursday the sentence, whose decision was advanced last Tuesday, which upholds the appeal of Pérez de los Cobos against the sentence of the National Court that confirmed his dismissal, agreed by the Ministry of the Interior in May 2020.
Pérez de los Cobos was fired after members of the Judicial Police of the Madrid Command delivered a report to the judge who was handling the case of the 8M demonstration and its possible influence on the spread of covid-19, of which no reported to the Ministry of the Interior.
He was under the orders of the magistrate
The specific reason that the Interior alluded to was “not reporting the development of investigations and actions of the Civil Guard in the operational framework and of the Judicial Police for information purposes.”
But the Supreme Court recalls that the Judicial Police Operational Unit was under the orders of the magistrate who directed the investigation “without government interference being admissible, and even less if the magistrate had ordered absolute secrecy and that only she was informed.”
Therefore, he continues, “if the express order of the magistrate of absolute confidentiality is added to the reservations inherent to any investigation (…), it is not possible to dismiss someone who was not part of that unit and pretext” for this the argument that he gave Inside.
The Supreme Court is blunt when it addresses the reason that Fernando Grande-Marlaska’s department alleged by emphasizing that “it is confusing” and “redundant” because “if the appellant was expected to report, it is obvious that it was for information purposes, that is, to know something that was unknown and that appeared in the press”.
But, in addition, it stresses that said reason “is contrary to the function of the Judicial Police” because “what the superior bodies of the Ministry of the Interior were unaware of and about what it is said that the appellant did not report, were the investigations and actions of the Judicial Police”, which was “expressly prohibited by the magistrate” who was directing the investigation.
It adds that “the cause invoked does not respond to a negative assessment of the professionalism and suitability” of Pérez de los Cobos which, by the way, the appeal judgment does not question.
The magistrates say that the colonel “not only reported as far as he could and repeatedly, but that the leak was not the cause of the dismissal but its trigger.”