PSOE and United We can opposed in the first instance, but the issue will be taken up again in February
MADRID, 24 One. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The PP will force a vote in Congress so that José Manuel Calvente, a former Podemos lawyer who denounced alleged irregularities committed by the party such as the fictitious hiring of the consultancy ‘Neurona’, appear in the Lower House in his capacity as a complainant of corruption.
Specifically, the PP wants Calvente to explain his experience to the Democratic Quality Commission, which has created a subcommission to study measures to improve the protection of people who report corrupt behavior.
CLEAR EXAMPLE OF RETALIATION
Calvente is a complainant in the ‘Neurona’ case, where the 42nd investigating court in Madrid investigates the possible existence of a simulated contract between this political consultant and Podemos for the 2019 electoral campaign with the alleged objective of diverting money from the ‘purple’ accounts ; and witness in the case ‘Dina’, where the National Court tries to find out how he appeared at the home of former police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and ended up publishing the information contained in a mobile phone stolen from the former adviser of Podemos Dina Bousselham.
The ‘popular’ consider that Calvente’s experience can serve to illustrate the deputies about the reprisals that those who denounce corruption usually suffer. And it is that, the ex-lawyer denounces that, after investigating and questioning the allegedly criminal acts that he attributes to Podemos leaders, the party undertook a “serious process of harassment and personal and labor retaliation” against him.
Podemos fired him in December 2019 alleging a complaint of sexual harassment, although later he admitted that it was an unfair dismissal and agreed to compensate him with 35,000 euros. In addition, a court filed the complaint of sexual and labor harassment that his partner in the legal office, Marta Flor, presented against him.
ERREJÓN ASKS RESPONSIBILITY
The PSOE and United We Can, which have a majority in the Table of the Congressional Anti-Corruption Commission, have rejected Calvente’s appearance requested by the PP, but the ‘popular’ are going to raise the matter again next February so that put it to a vote in the committee, according to what parliamentary sources have explained to Europa Press.
The president of this body, the leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejón, abstained the first time the matter was addressed and called on all groups to act responsibly and not turn the subcommission into a spectacle with matters unrelated to the herself.
But, given that Errejón is not in favor of the imposition of vetoes in the appearances and that, if there is no agreement at the table of a committee, the issue can be raised to the plenary of the same, it has been agreed to vote the request of the PP when it starts the new session.
AND ALSO DOLORES DELGADO
In that same session, the ‘popular’ will force the commission to rule on the convenience of having the State Attorney General, Dolores Delgado, appear before the same subcommittee, but, where appropriate, within the group of appearing parties who are going to propose improvements to increase the independence of regulatory bodies.
This request from the PP traveled the same path as Calvente’s, it ran into the ‘no’ of the PSOE and United We Can at the table of the Democratic Quality Commission, but it will be resumed in February.
The appearances of experts to seek formulas that reinforce the impartiality of independent organizations began in December with the governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, and the president of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIRef), Cristina Herrero.
In February, the heads of the presidents of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Sebastián Abella, and of the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), Cani Fernández, are expected to appear.
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