Never have seven lines become as famous in the investiture of a Spanish prime minister as those making up a statement issued on Sunday by the Association of State Solicitors, which reads: "In the face of recent published information, the governing board of the Association of State Solicitors rejects any attempts at interference or pressure and especially threats aimed at undermining or affecting the performance of the State Solicitors' duties. We State Solicitors must act in our procedural texts and documents with strict adherence to legal-technical criteria. We are professionals of the Law and qualified public servants who since 1881 have guaranteed subordination to the Law. That is what unites us."
Interferences, pressures and threats, this elite body of the Spanish administration indicates. A curious observer cannot help but be struck and surprised by a state in which, as we have seen, interference, pressures and threats are the order of the day. Could it be that for this body of elite lawyers - whose power was not so long ago dominated by two State Solicitors as illustrious as former PP deputy prime minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and former PP secretary general María Dolores de Cospedal - what really irritates is that they are being used for an agreement between the Socialists and the pro-independence ERC?
When the State Solicitors' opinions were in favour of locking up, judging, and finding guilty the pro-independence leaders, we knew next to nothing about them as a group, beyond the occasional well-reported retirement to go into politics. Those were the times when the Popular Party, PSOE and Ciudadanos all went hand in hand. Now, the political balance has changed and the state, in the depths of its machinery, is emitting loud groans as we are hearing these days. Complying with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union is a bridge too far for those make and unmake decisions without anyone correcting them from above.
We will see what the State Solicitors' report ends up saying, and whether it is true, as has been leaked, that is good enough for ERC, who are ultimately in the driver's seat since without them there is no investiture. Despite all of the haste urged by Pedro Sánchez and his expertise in tricks with mirrors to pressure his negotiating partner.