The Supreme Court "or its entourage" has already published the ruling

Nineteen days after announcing the verdict, the Supreme Court has finally published its ruling justifying the two-year disqualification of the Attorney General. It considers that Álvaro García Ortiz committed the crime of "disclosure of confidential information," since, according to the judges who signed the ruling—five of the seven who comprised the panel—there is a body of "solid" evidence to assert that he, "or someone in his immediate circle with his knowledge," leaked to journalists a statement by Ayuso requesting a plea bargain and admitting to tax fraud. It is surprising that after so many days, the ruling is full of conditionals and suppositions that the judges consider clear indications. The appearance of the phrase "or someone in his immediate circle" already seems to demonstrate that they were unable to determine exactly who did it, and elsewhere in the ruling they also indicate that the fact that he deleted the WhatsApp messages from that day, for example, is, in their view, proof that he wanted to hide what he had done. In this respect, the numerous conditional statements and the overall tone of the ruling are worrying. This is especially true because the dissenting opinion of the two progressive judges dismantles these arguments, asserting that, in fact, there is no clear evidence directly incriminating García Ortiz.

The 181-page ruling will be analyzed in detail by legal experts, as it is one of the most significant in recent times and represents an unprecedented clash between two state legal institutions. In fact, the interpretation has been, unsurprisingly, political, because the Spanish government has already stated that it respects the ruling but does not agree with it—some ministers have even compared it to a Hollywood script—and the People's Party (PP) is trying to exploit it by now pointing to Sánchez as the main instigator of the prosecutor's actions. Indeed, it is a ruling that has been celebrated by the political and media "environment" of a Supreme Court that is clearly leaning to the right and that interprets the laws, as was seen in the trial of the former Spanish Prime Minister, from that perspective. But its clear role in this politicization is not good for the institution because it erodes public trust in the justice system, a serious matter in a state governed by the rule of law.

The game isn't over yet. On the one hand, because the trial of Ayuso's partner, Alberto González Amador, is still to be held, and that sentence—however much the judges warn that it cannot be used to argue for annulment—will undoubtedly loom large over what happens. On the other hand, because the Attorney General's defense plans to take the case to the Constitutional Court, and can only do so by first requesting the annulment of the sentence. We will continue to hear about the case, then, because it will become another weapon to be thrown around by the various factions in Madrid's tense political scene. The fact that the sentence against an entire Attorney General wasn't unanimous, even though it was expected, is very worrying. The fact that, after so many days, it's still not conclusive only exacerbates the problem.