The division is total and it rains on wet. The group of lawyers in Congress is absolutely divided in relation to the actions of its secretary general, Carlos Gutiérrez, for an action typical of a “defense lawyer” of the president, Meritxell Batet. As reported to THE OBJECTIVE parliamentary sources, unanimity is far from being the usual trend in the legal services of the lower house, who reproach “the action on the part” of the senior lawyer of Cortes regarding the presidency of the chamber.
“It is a scandal, it is bordering on prevarication”explain the aforementioned legal sources to this newspaper before the irruption of a report from the lawyers in the electoral campaign and unusually on a Friday and with the heading of “I send this to you at the request of the president of Congress”, as it appears in the subject of the communication via email. “Never has a report been sent on a Friday, three days before the Board meeting”, and with the aggravating circumstance that the report is not signed.
An unsigned report
Lawyers of the chamber remind that it is not the first time that the senior lawyer of the Courts uses this formula to avoid personally assuming the support of Batet’s management that would further ignite the spirits of the more than 50 lawyers in Congress. In October 2021, the same secretary general of Congress, Carlos Gutiérrez, avoided signing another report made at the request of Batet in response to the ruling sent by the president of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, Manuel Marchena, urging him to withdraw the minutes of the deputy of Podemos, Alberto Rodríguez.
“It was an embarrassment,” explain parliamentary sources who Batet “did not dare to execute the sentence and requested an a la carte legal report”. Then there were two reports from the lawyers. One first unsigned and favorable to Batet and a second, after the Table requested a clarification from Marchena and he demanded the immediate execution of the sentence and the withdrawal of the seat of the deputy of Podemos, which was signed by the general secretary and which maintained a criterion contrary to the first.
“Batet’s lack of authority”
«It is being acted in a cowardly way to hide Batet’s lack of authority», denounce parliamentary sources, due to “pressure from Moncloa and PSOE and Podemos.” In this sense, they recall that the previous episode of the removal of a seat from a deputy, the deputy of the extinct Convergencia i Unió, Francesc Homs, was suddenly expelled by the then president of Congress, Ana Pastor, without the need to hide behind the lawyers of the chamber who are now “being crudely used” nor provoke an institutional conflict between Congress and the Supreme Court.
The feeling is shared by the parliamentary groups and not only by those of the parliamentary arch of the right. Parliamentary sources of Podemos and other formations of the Frankenstein alliance agree in emphasizing that the president’s lack of authority makes her move with “insecurity and arrogance”, lethal combination in the process of making quick decisions during the plenary session, when it is necessary to act with diligence and profuse knowledge of the regulations. Something that was revealed in the request for Batet’s resignation by the purple formation in the Alberto Rodríguez episode.
Gutiérrez endorsed Batet in plenary
This was the case of the vote on the labor reform on Thursday of last week in Congress. Batet had to decide in extremis, minutes before the vote in Congress, on the demand that the PP made to convene the Table to decide whether or not a deputy, Alberto Casero, was allowed to vote in plenary session. After having voted for it electronically, Casero appeared in the Hemicycle to try to vote in person after reporting an alleged computer error in the system.
According to the version given by the presidency of Congress to this newspaper, the senior lawyer of the Cortes “endorsed Batet’s criteria of not repeating the vote” of the PP deputy because “there was no computer error”, as the report of the lawyers to which THE OBJECTIVE had access and sent this Friday to the members of the Congress Table made clear.
Minutes before the face-to-face vote and in a huge uproar at the chamber’s presiding table, Batet rejected an urgent summons from the Table, alleging that the Table had already met and pronounced on the matter, which did not occur. And this motivates the main complaint of the PP that has sent a letter to the presidency requesting the minutes of that alleged meeting of the governing body, which should be signed by the Secretary General. “Batet deliberately lied and acted in an arrogant and arrogant manner, violating the deputy’s right to vote.”
“Batet lied with the meeting of the Table”
Socialist sources explain this point by assuring that Batet was wrong. When he said that the Board had ruled but he was the senior lawyer, not the Board Although the substance of the matter is the same. There was no mistake.” Along with the lawyers’ report, a report from the Congress Telecommunications Directorate was included, rejecting the possibility of a computer error in the voting system. “That is not enough”, they explain in the PP in the face of the lack of rigor of that version of the computer services of Congress, “an external audit would have to be requested to verify a very complex system in which it is sometimes impossible to verify and validate the voting options.
However, this will not be the battle horse of the PP and Vox opposition next Tuesday at the Table meeting, scheduled for 10:00 a.m. The argumentative axis of the opposition will focus on defend the repetition of the vote to safeguard the right to vote of the popular deputy. According to popular parliamentary sources, «the telematic vote is something exceptional, but an error cannot pervert the meaning of the deputy’s vote. The regulation is clear in this regard and allows the deputy to have exercised the vote in person.
The legal debate
What the PP refers to is the point 6 of the Congress regulations that, in its resolution of May 21, 2012 for the development of telematic voting, it establishes that: «The deputy who had cast his vote by telematic vote may not cast his vote in person without express authorization of the Table of the Chamber that, in the event that it decides to authorize the vote in person, will declare the telematic vote null and not issued. It is the only assumption that is unprecedented, parliamentary sources recall: “and there is not because it has never been requested, not because it has been rejected.”
From the Presidency of Congress, they allege that the two resolutions of the Bureau advanced by THE OBJECTIVE, dated March 19, 2020 and October 21, 2021, “complete and repeal the 2012 resolution and that they were supported by the PP to attend to the special circumstances of the pandemic ». But the PP denies the biggest: «the agreement of the Table in October is made in subordination to what is included in the Regulation in its point 6. In fact, it is expressly cited ‘the provisions of article 82 of the Regulations and without prejudice to the provisions of the Resolution of the Chamber Table for the development of the telematic voting procedure’. Notwithstanding. It does not contradict the regulations and does not expressly say that the telematic vote will prevent a face-to-face vote in the future.
The six written complaints from PP and Vox
“The least” for the opposition is the replacement of the telephone verification system for the double self-verification of the parliamentarian «with the introduction of username and password as a verification method» that is included in the two aforementioned agreements of the Table. “It was a mistake to focus on talking about a computer failure and the absence of telephone verification,” these sources explain, because “the issue is much more relevant and lies in the fundamental right of a representative of sovereignty to exercise their right to vote. .
This is a substantive legal debate that will focus the PP’s appeal to the Constitutional Court after Tuesday’s meeting, which will predictably end with a defeat for the opposition’s postulates. Up to six written complaints have been submitted by the PP and Vox, on which Batet and the members of the Bureau will also have to rule, and which could conclude in a possible vote on repeating the votefor which the 3 representatives of PP(2) and VOX(1) are a minority compared to the 6 of PSOE (3) and Podemos (3).