A daily judicial axe
The scandals surrounding the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), involving corruption and instances of gender-based harassment, are not only deeply concerning because they call into question the integrity of the political system and undermine public trust, but also foreshadow an increasingly likely shift in power towards the far right. To this context must be added judicial decisions incompatible with the rule of law, to put it mildly. Some experts, such as former magistrate José Antonio Martín Pallín, have openly spoken of judicial coups. The most grotesque recent episode has been the Supreme Court's ruling that convicted former Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz after a highly substandard investigation. The five justices who voted in favor of the conviction belong to the most conservative wing of the judiciary.
The ruling attributes the leak of the email to García Ortiz or "someone in his circle." In the email, Alberto González Amador, the partner of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, admitted to committing up to two tax offenses (which, incidentally, we hope will be prosecuted with the same zeal and speed). Leaving aside the incomprehensible—and sudden—interest of a segment of the judiciary in leaks within the judicial system, where they are commonplace and, as we know, go unpunished, one doesn't need to be a legal expert to realize that the ruling violates the presumption of innocence by elevating to the level of evidence a mere conjecture from a third party acting under his orders.
The lack of evidence and the guilty conscience of the self-righteous magistrates are evident in the paltry sentence imposed, despite the dire consequences: a two-year disqualification from holding public office. More brazenly, the prosecutors from the right-wing association demanded no less than six years... in prison! Because, of course, the point was to get a conviction. By any means necessary. And let it be known that I am convinced that the naive García Ortiz erred in his eagerness to interfere in the political struggle between the ineffable Ayuso and the resilient government of Pedro Sánchez, when he rushed to draft a press release denying the fabrication concocted by the treacherous spokesperson. leadershipMiguel Ángel Rodríguez.
The militant activity of the judicial right, hegemonic in Spain, has been aimed for years, and especially during the three-year period of Sánchez's rule, at eroding the functioning of institutions not controlled by the political right and destabilizing ideological options they dislike: separatists, Podemos and, lately, even a dynastic party and the People's Party, which, when it comes to power, never jeopardizes any of the consensuses of the second restoration.
This meticulously crafted strategy is part of the renewed conservative backlash spearheaded by the Aznar-era motto, "Let those who can, do." And this represents a significant qualitative leap. The authoritarian, Francoist-era judiciary of the pre-Transition era, unlike the security forces, the army, and the intelligence services, remained unreformed as a major power behind the throne. Thus, today, the judiciary is not only the branch of government most resistant to political decentralization, but also the most opaque and uncontrollable under the guise of the separation of powers. Furthermore, it is the branch of government most resistant to social and political criticism.
Public scrutiny must be free, and the media must not be held captive by the political polarization fueled by Madrid's overheated conflict-provoking machine. Governments, and politicians in general, must be able to criticize judicial decisions instead of displaying the usual reverential fear. Commissions for public works projects or the intolerable behavior of a Francisco Salazar are just as serious as... lawfare which prevails in many unjustly prosecuted cases. Or the revelation that the pardons and the amnesty law have been the efficient cause of the Supreme Court's poorly disguised revenge against the Catalan independence movement and the PSOE, taking advantage of its being mired in unbearable turmoil. Let's be clear: those in Marchena can't stomach the fact that the fanciful, baroque, and harsh sentence of the Process has been rendered worthless. And this doesn't bode well. Let the proponents of the oasis of stagnant waters take note.
