The same week that Pedro Sánchez's judicial nightmare has been reactivated at the National Court, and a few meters from where the former director general of the Civil Guard was testifying, under investigation in the Leire Díez case, the Supreme Court has kicked off the judicial year. Everyone knows – in Ferraz, in Génova, and in La Moncloa – that the timing of the justice system will mark the final twists and turns of the legislative term, both due to the cases splashing the PSOE and the application of the amnesty. And one of the great protagonists has been the reprimands for the criticisms of judges: “It is not admissible for public disqualification to become an instrument of pressure,” declared the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Isabel Perelló. “If the disqualifications come from those who hold institutional responsibilities, the gravity is greater,” she added.

In all this fuss against the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, the main issue is sometimes lost sight of. Namely, that the accusation is of having leaked a real and true email in which a criminal confesses to having defrauded the Treasury and asks for a deal to reduce his sentence. García Ortiz is not accused of malfeasance, misappropriating other people's money, or using his position to enrich himself. This, for example, is included in the judge's report against former Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, who is not only under investigation for changing laws to benefit certain companies but also publicly flaunted his knowledge of the tax situation of his opponents, and also of his co-religionists. In other words, he revealed secrets that he equally couldn't reveal, or threatened to do so.

On Friday morning the media covered the event.opening of the judicial year. It's an institutional ritual where speeches by the Supreme Court president and the attorney general diagnose the state of the justice system. It's an eminently corporate and symbolic act of what citizens feel distant from. Televising it can be interpreted as a gesture of transparency in which the judiciary self-evaluates, but at the same time it contributes to accentuating that aura of distance. The bright red, on La Sexta, for example, they kept a fixed box on the screen with the image of the entrance to the Supreme Court to closely observe how the attendees arrived, as if it were the red carpet of a glamorous film festival.

The fact that the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Isabel Perelló, had a speech that was only seven pages long and provided virtually no account to the king of the courts' activity over the past year demonstrates the exceptional situation facing this branch of the state, immersed in incessant tension and division. The president of the Supreme Court dedicated most of her speech to rejecting the "insistent disqualifications of justice from the public authorities," in a clear response to the attacks on Monday by Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, on a day marked by the presence of the Attorney General, who was about to be tried and who the right-wing celebrated this Friday in Madrid. "If I'm here, it's because I believe in justice and in the institutions that comprise it. I believe in the rule of law, in the independence of the judiciary, in the principles of legality and impartiality. And, of course, also in the truth," defended Álvaro García Ortiz, who does not intend to resign and did not hesitate for a moment to attend.

Negotiations are at a standstill, but the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Isabel Perelló, is making moves to try to unblock the election of Manuel Marchena's replacement as president of the second chamber of the Supreme Court, the criminal chamber. The president of the court on October 1st left office when his term ended last December, and since then the acting president of the Supreme Court's criminal chamber is Andrés Martínez Arrieta, the most senior member, who is retiring in two years. He is the preferred candidate of the conservative bloc, and his rival is Ana Ferrer, the candidate promoted by the progressive group that He disagrees with the vast majority of his colleagues regarding the application of the amnesty..