Editorial 28: What citizens will see and understand.
Although editorials guide ideological line of each publication, it is a good time to take a snapshot, a picture, without having to review. As stated in the previous sentence to the preamble of the Spanish Constitution: “To all who see and hear this, you know”. This editorial offers ten notes, compiled from media, which can provide a vision of the way how citizens may see and understand the world.
ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE STATE
1.- “Public sector has been oversized, we cannot keep a 50% of the economy in the hands of the State”.
2.- “It is unfortunate” that the president, vice-president and the ministers of Economy and Finance “ have been speculating about the origin and deviation of deficit when their own governments were breaching the deficit targets.
3.- The waste of public money in cell phones, credit cards, official cars, representation expenses… is not tolerable in times of economic crisis (actually, should not be at any time). “La Junta”, for example, has reached an expense of 70 million Euros a year in mobile telephony. The result of this irresponsibility is an accumulated debt, in this region, of 2500 million Euros.
The most dramatic side of this indebtedness is the non-payment to suppliers. Thousands of small and middle companies have been obligated to close down in the last few years because “la Junta” does not pay its debts. The darkest side is the waste of money through corruption schemes. “La Junta” owns thousands of million Euros to many kinds of suppliers: sanitary companies, pharmaceutical laboratories, construction companies, small and middle companies, freelance… Moreover they own money to especial employment centers, booksellers and occupational training centers.
4.- The new castles which nobody wants, a review of some of the monumental works that have become, according to US publication, in “symbols of excess during the boom years”
ABOUT THE REACTION OF THE STATE
5.- Nowadays the State pretends a transfer of jobs from public administration, state companies and official foundations to the private company. Crisis and unemployment have unbalanced the rate between net contributors and public employees, as well as between retirees (more unemployment) and active population.
6.- The State shields its public sector: Public administrations must not be declared bankrupt and their assets must not be embargoed. This especial status affects the central government, autonomous communities, municipalities and public companies although the delay of the payment takes 6 years.
7.- However, the new government has not adopted a single measure in these few months of the new mandate, to reactivate the economy or create jobs but only to mitigate the ruin of administrations due to decades of waste of money and corruption.
ABOUT THE POLITIC INFLUENCE IN JUSTICE
8.- Political parties shares the appointment of judges in the Constitutional Court.
Constitutional Court (CC) will have again, four years after; with the twelve members that stipulates the Constitution. Finally parties have agreed to announce yesterday, almost at the extra time, the expected renewal of the High Court.
9.- The president of the National Court have consideration of Chairman of the Board of the Supreme Court. On respect of the National Court, it is formed by the Chamber of Penal, Chamber of Appeals, Chamber of Administrative Disputes and Chamber of Labour. Their magistrates are appointed by political parties, so that their judgments are subjected to non-judicial criteria.
We can see the public reporting again and again, and we can also see that the people who have the obligation to do it is subjected to the citizen despair. I have heard speeches of unmeasured praise to people whose exemplary conduct is in question. I still am watching waste of money everywhere. The trips – the famous trips that now shock everyone – have been almost a lifestyle for some people in the judiciary and the Prosecutor, as well as a way to gain professional influence by the person who managed them. What are doing our prosecutors and juedges in places like China, Korea, Russia and many others African and American countries in times when our salaries are being reduced because there is not money enough to support public accounts? Why some retired prosecutors have been sent to South America on behalf of the Prosecution? There is not any explanation to all of this waste of money, to all of this abuse. Official cars, lights on massively in all public building, air conditioning when no one need be cool… Appointments without merit that warrant them, sectarianism on the basis of “trust”. Lack of objectivity and guarantees.
CITIZENSHIP
10.- The accounts of citizens can be garnish due to an administrative penalty of traffic, even if it is of dubious veracity and the agent has truthfulness towards the allegedly “suspicious” citizen. Another example is that people may lose their private home for unpaid shares to a private bank with judicial intervention.
As promised at the beginning of this editorial, no comment.
Meanwhile, if you want, a press release that, in the described situation, looks like a bad joke or an insult to the citizenship: The proliferation of lunchboxes in school menus, especially due to the economic situation of many of the families who bring their children to school and who cannot afford the price of school meals, according to the Local School Board, it must issue regulations governing its use in schools. Education Department has also made the firsts steps to regulate the use of lunchboxes in schools.
In parallel, the Department of Health will provide the schools with guidance material with hygiene measures to regulate, both for schools and families. This guidance would detail the foods of the Mediterranean diet most suitable for use in “Tupperware”.