The Spanish judicial and political mud

The Supreme Court will try the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, in the coming months for his alleged leak of an email linked to Alberto González Amador, the partner of Madrid's president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. In said email, González Amador confessed to having defrauded the Treasury and requested a deal to reduce his sentence.

Bringing an Attorney General to trial is absolutely unprecedented and can only be explained within the framework of the brutal legal-political war pitting the PP and the PSOE against each other. There is no respite in this ideologically fractured Spain, with a right increasingly leaning toward demagogic populism and a ruling socialist party defending itself by all means, some of dubious legality. The Madrid mud leaves neither justice nor politics in a minimally presentable position. In Catalonia, during the Trial, we already saw a highly politicized justice system and a policy that delegated its inability to resolve problems to the justice system. Now that modus operandi It has become the norm at the heart of state power. The spectacle is disappointing and only fuels anti-politics.

The Supreme Court, having become both arbiter and party, has taken the final step of sending the Attorney General to trial, accused of revealing secrets. To make things crystal clear, it has imposed a bail of 150,000 euros "to cover any financial liabilities that may arise," that is, the payment of possible compensation to González Amador for "moral damages." There is no doubt about the perspective of the investigating judge, Ángel Hurtado. In a war, even a judicial one, there is no need for dissembling. If García Ortiz does not hand over the money within a period of five days, his assets will be seized. However, contrary to what the popular prosecution had requested, he has not been provisionally suspended from his duties as head of the public prosecutor's office, surely not for lack of desire, but because there is a "legal loophole" that prevents it. In any case, everything indicates that the Supreme Court that will judge the Attorney General will have a conservative majority. The People's Party (PP) is well on its way to that battle. Others, not so much.

The PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) is unwavering. The Moncloa maintains its unwavering support for García Ortiz and maintains his innocence. Pedro Sánchez wants to see out his term. He doesn't want elections because he believes that, as things stand, he himself would easily end up in the dock. So the climate of confrontation, both in the judicial bodies and institutions and in Congress, is guaranteed despite the fragility of the Spanish government, which largely depends on what happens in the courts, where cases relevant to its survival are piling up: what Puigdemont's amnesty must resolve (Junts' votes are key for Sánchez). Of course, the PSOE will also exploit the sting of some thirty cases affecting the PP, starting with that of former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro and continuing with the Gürtel scandal and others. There's enough room for everyone. Spanish politics is perfectly entrenched in a relentless judicial and political quagmire.