There is a new complaint lodged by an association of lawyers against senior Spanish prosecutor Consuelo Madrigal - the country's former attorney general and part of the prosecution team in the Catalan independence leaders' trial - in relation to the content of an article which is highly critical of the Spanish government's management of the coronavirus pandemic, published in the newspaper El Mundo on 3rd May.
This matter, to be considered by the Spanish prosecution service's inspectorate, is independent of the internal investigation that has been opened by the same supervisory body in response to allegations made by Supreme Court prosecutor Luis Navajas, who in recent interviews asserted that two colleagues had tried to "influence" the direction of the report he was making on complaints filed against the Spanish government for its management of the current health crisis.
The controversial article by prosecutor Consuelo Madrigal in the newspaper El Mundo
The new complaint against Madrigal, which will require an information-gathering stage before it is considered, according to the sources consulted, has been submitted by the lawyers' association Fòrum d'Advocats i Advocades d'Esquerra. Although the article was published almost five months ago, the lawyers who have made the complaint believe that its content should be subject to disciplinary action.
With regard to the case of the "pressures" denounced earlier this week by prosecutor Navajas, the official documentation to open the internal inquiry on the matter does not indicate against whom the actions are directed, although one of the prosecutors named in the interviews is Madrigal. The investigation is currently limited to an analysis of what was said, in order to decide whether a disciplinary case against a particular prosecutor must be opened.
According to Navajas, when complaints against the Spanish government over the coronavirus began to be filed earlier this year, some prosecutors visited him in his office to try to influence him on the merits of the matter. Specifically, he mentioned Consuelo Madrigal and "another colleague" whose name he did not want to reveal. "They are highly regarded prosecutors, but in this particular case they are ideologically tainted," he said.