He supreme court has annulled this Tuesday the cessation of the colonel of Diego Perez de los Cobos as head of the Command of the Civil Guard of Madrid after refusing to share the judicial report with the Ministry of the Interior on the demonstration held in Madrid on March 8, 2020 in the context of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in Spain.
De los Cobos refused to hand it over because said report was then prosecuted, for which he would have committed a crime. A few days later, Fernando Grande Marlaska’s Ministry of the Interior dismissed him abruptly from his position at the head of the Madrid Civil Guard Command.
The Supreme Court agrees with Pérez de los Cobos and annuls the sentence of the National Court of September 15, 2021 that endorsed his dismissal as head of the Madrid Civil Guard Command.
The dismissal “cancelled” of the Cobos
Colonel de los Cobos was dismissed after members of the Judicial Police of the Madrid Command delivered a report to the judge dealing with the case of the 8M demonstration and its possible influence on the spread of the coronavirus. The demonstration took place six days before the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared a state of alarm throughout the Spanish territory.
At first the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, attributed the termination to internal organizational reasons and not to the leak of the report. However, he later said that his dismissal did respond with that leak.
The High Court admitted for processing the appeal of Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos against the sentence that endorsed his departure of the Command, to determine how a dismissal such as yours should be motivated and to establish what is the “required motivation” in cases of freely appointed positions.
The magistrates thus responded to the brief by Pérez de los Cobos against the resolution of the National Court that declared his dismissal when his subordinates were investigating the possible relationship of the demonstration of March 8, 2020 with the beginning of coronavirus infections.