Two months after the Supreme Court disqualified the then Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García OrtizFor the crime of disclosing classified information, the Spanish government is processing its first request for a full pardon. According to reports The Country And the Spanish government has confirmed that the Ministry of Justice has already asked the Supreme Court to issue a report on the pardon after it was requested by two private individuals. This is the first pardon request since García Ortiz was convicted for leaking the email in which Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner, Alberto González Amador, admitted to tax fraud. It's worth remembering that, despite the outcome of the case, Pedro Sánchez's government and the president himself have consistently stood by the former Attorney General. The Spanish government maintains that García Ortiz is innocent, even though he has been convicted, and has even questioned the procedure behind what it considers an "unjust" conviction. The Public Prosecutor's Office, in fact, has already has asked that the conviction be overturned And this Tuesday, more than 150 legal experts, including former Supreme Court magistrates such as José Antonio Martín Pallín and former National Court judge Baltasar Garzón, signed a manifesto in which they criticize the sentence "Disturbing" regarding Ortiz. For the moment, the Spanish government has reacted cautiously to the pardon request from two individuals. "We'll see what the Supreme Court says in this case, as they are the ones who have been asked for information [about the pardon]," stated the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres.

There are fraudulent rulings and rulings that are inherently fraudulent. The Supreme Court's ruling that convicts the Attorney General falls into the latter category. This court, boasting of its extensive expertise and the high legal caliber of some of its members, has drafted a decision that appears technically sound, but which falters when it addresses the core issue it is meant to resolve.

The dirty war of justice, or lawfare, is hardly news anymore in Spain. Let's be clear: it makes headlines and leads the news, but it's anything but a secret or a surprise. Its existence is acknowledged, more or less openly, by various prosecutors and judges whose ethics still allow them to feign outrage at what is truly a scandal, unfolding before everyone's eyes. The latest case is the conviction of Álvaro García Ortiz, the former Attorney General of Spain, whose sentence was delayed for almost three weeks and whose legal reasoning has once again caused a stir, at least among the progressive wing of the Spanish judiciary. The fact that the conviction stems from a power struggle between the Public Prosecutor's Office and the partner of the President of the Community of Madrid makes everything sadly understandable. That Ayuso is untouchable, having weathered several scandals that should have had legal consequences (during the pandemic alone: the sale of medical masks, the rushed construction of the Isabel Zendal hospital, the deaths of over seven thousand people in Madrid's nursing homes due to the so-called "protocols of shame"; she should testify) is a well-known fact. We now know that her boyfriend and her advisor are also untouchable.

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.

In this dual and perpetually confrontational Spain, everything is liable to become a weapon. It is the stubborn and atavistic civil war mentality. The Spanish right gives no quarter. If anyone has completely undermined the spirit of consensus of the Transition, it is the competitive PP-Vox alliance, each trying to pinpoint the most alleged traitors to the nation. The latest episode involves the Attorney General's Office. With the downfall of Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz, the choice of Pedro Sánchez's government has already awakened the right's belligerent instincts. La Moncloa has proposed as a replacement... progressive feminist Teresa Peramato (Salamanca, 1962), member of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors, an association he chaired from 2019 to 2021.

The Spanish Attorney General has not waited for the official notification of the sentence that will convict him for revealing secrets—it has not yet been drafted—and resigned from his post this Monday morning. Álvaro García Ortiz sent a letter early this morning to the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, in which he asks to be dismissed "without even waiting to learn the reasoning" of the Supreme Court's decision, which announced last week that it will disqualify him from holding public office for two years for leaking an email in which the couple... In the letter, the Attorney General asserts that his service "is an act owed not only to the Public Prosecutor's Office, but to all Spanish citizens." García Ortiz thus avoids prolonging his inevitable departure and paves the way for the Spanish government to announce his replacement, which is still unknown. "We have already set in motion the process for appointing the new Attorney General," explained Pedro Sánchez from the G-20 summit in Angola. The Spanish president did not specify whether the matter would be resolved at Tuesday's cabinet meeting, but said there would be news "in a short time."

It's bad when judicial decisions are interpreted as if they were a football match: conservatives 5, progressives 2. This is how the news reports of the Supreme Court's ruling that disqualifies the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, for two years are being headlined. And what's worse is that if political interpretations of high court decisions have become commonplace, it's because the signs of politicization of the judiciary persist; some judges even readily identify themselves by their ideological leanings.

Two-year disqualification, fine, and compensation for Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. condemnation of the Attorney General of the StateÁlvaro García Ortiz arrived at the Supreme Court this Thursday, the 50th anniversary of Franco's death, unexpectedly. He arrived even earlier than anticipated, and in fact, the sentence had not yet been drafted. Who are the five judges of the criminal division who made this decision? And who are the two dissenting judges? We examine the profiles of a court with a conservative majority, and the names associated with the judicialization of the Process of National Reorganization abound.

The Supreme Court's decision to disqualify the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, came just a week after the trial ended, but the drafting of the ruling could take much longer and run to dozens of pages. Legal experts consulted by ARA are awaiting the judges' arguments, which will require them to justify how, based on the evidence presented at the trial—the journalists exonerated him—they concluded that García Ortiz was the one who leaked the messages in which the lawyer for businessman Alberto González Amador Ayuso attempted to reach a plea bargain with the Prosecutor's Office and admitted that his client had committed tax fraud. While awaiting the judges' justification, the connection between the two cases is leading various voices to question the potential impact of the Attorney General's conviction on the González Amador case.

The conviction of the Attorney General has sent shockwaves through Spanish politics. The two-year disqualification of Álvaro García Ortiz is a major blow to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has maintained his innocence to the very end. This explains why he has not explicitly addressed the event held in Congress on November 20th, the fiftieth anniversary of Franco's death. He did, however, defend "freedom of the press" in the face of "complex times for journalism" amidst "abuses of power" and "disinformation campaigns." In any case, the Moncloa Palace has made it clear that it "does not agree" with the sentence against the Attorney General, although it "respects" it, as confirmed by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños. In fact, the state executive stressed that in the coming days he will set in motion the process to choose a new attorney general, while acknowledging García Ortiz's "work" and his "commitment to defending public service, the law, and the truth." Thus, despite the fierce defense, particularly pronounced in the case of the Socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, who has labeled the sentence a "disgrace," the fact remains that a replacement is being sought. What are the next steps?

The conviction of the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, is one that marks a turning point, a stage in the life of the State and the relations between its institutions. The reasoning behind the sentence will, of course, need to be examined, but the very fact that the Attorney General has been found guilty of a crime implies a correction imposed on the government of Pedro Sánchez, which had defended his innocence. Furthermore, the conduct of the Public Prosecutor's Office was being judged for refuting a media manipulation. What García Ortiz did was address a lie that compromised the credibility of his administration. The false news was that the Public Prosecutor's Office had halted negotiations with businessman Alberto González Amador—accused of tax fraud—following instructions received from high-ranking officials, that is, from the government. It was further claimed that the attempted settlement had initially been promoted by the prosecutors, when in reality it had been requested by the defense.

The big game hunt continues, now targeting the Attorney General. convicted of revealing secretsJust as Ayuso's right-hand man, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, had predicted, the Attorney General has been taken away...forwards"You have been warned.

The Attorney General sitting in the dock at the Supreme Court is an unusual sight, almost unthinkable in any mature democracy. This week, Álvaro García Ortiz was tried for the alleged crime of revealing secrets following the leak of an email related to the tax fraud case against the partner of the Madrid regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Beyond the specific case, the image is extraordinarily symbolic. It is the State judging the State.

The Provincial Court of Madrid confirmed on Friday the indictment of Alberto González Amador, partner of the Madrid regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. He is being investigated for tax fraud, document forgery, ongoing accounting fraud, and membership in a criminal organization for allegedly defrauding the Spanish Treasury of nearly €351,000 in 2020 and 2021 through several false invoices. The confirmation comes after the judges dismissed the appeal filed by González Amador against the summary proceedings ruling issued by Madrid's Court of Instruction Number 19 in May. In this appeal, Ayuso's partner requested the annulment of this ruling, which was the preliminary step before the start of the trial. which the judge already opened at the end of September

The trial at the Supreme Court against the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, for an alleged crime of revealing secrets, with a request for years in prison, is a good reflection of where a war for power ends up in which the nationalist right has no problem demolishing the institutions of the State to save it, as they say.

In weeks like this, the disappearance of Catalan politics from the forefront of the political scene is glaringly obvious. With everything happening in Valencia, the trial of the Attorney General, and the corruption cases plaguing the PSOE, it's not surprising. But this isn't happening now. Isla has prioritized peace and is very closely tied to Pedro Sánchez, both politically and personally, and both Junts and Esquerra have their leaders barred from holding office. Both the Catalan and Spanish governments are fragile, but we've already entered a period where failing to pass a budget is no longer grounds for calling elections. The result? A game of impotence.

The Supreme Court will host the hearings in the next two weeks. one of the trials with which the PP and Vox want to corner Pedro Sánchez And it will be a staged clash between the right wing and the Moncloa Palace (the Prime Minister's residence). It's not the culmination of any investigations into his personal life, but rather the case used by conservatives to illustrate that the "institutional degradation" they blame on the Socialist leader has reached unprecedented levels in Spanish democracy. The situation that will unfold starting Monday in the Supreme Court is truly unprecedented. It will be the first time a sitting Attorney General has been in the dock. The future of Álvaro García Ortiz, who was appointed directly by the Spanish government, will be defined by the six sessions of the trial for revealing secrets. It remains to be seen whether it can be determined if he was the one who leaked the email containing confidential information about Alberto González Amador, Isabel Díaz Ayuso's boyfriend, to the press. Aside from the potential political consequences of a conviction, the Attorney General faces up to six years in prison. Let's take a look at who's who in this trial.

The Attorney General of Spain, Álvaro García Ortiz, has ordered the opening of an investigation in Spain into Israel's "crimes" in Gaza. According to SER (Spanish National News Service) and confirmed by the Prosecutor's Office, the investigation had been requested by Dolores Delgado, the Prosecutor for Human Rights and Democratic Memory, to determine whether the actions could constitute "serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, constituting crimes provided for in Articles 607 et seq." These include the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes against persons and property protected in the event of armed conflict. Delgado, former Minister of Justice under Pedro Sánchez, requested the investigation after receiving a report from the National Police in June that included witnesses and evidence pointing to Israel committing actions contrary to international law in Gaza. She herself, along with the head of the Prosecutor's Office at the National Court, Jesús Alonso, will lead the proceedings, as decreed by the Attorney General. The conclusions of the investigation, similar to the one launched by the Spanish Prosecutor's Office to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine, will be submitted to the international bodies that already have open cases against Israel.

This term will go down in the country's political history as a period filled with paradoxes, possibly as a result of the initial contradiction. It makes perfect sense for the person who can muster a parliamentary majority to govern, but things would have been very different if the PP, as the party with the most votes, had come to power. Feijóo's constant grumbling, since his failure in his investiture debate, has infected everything, especially the judicial world, leading to the progressive deterioration of the conditions under which government action has had to be carried out. It is well known that parallel lines, if they meet anywhere, are in infinity. And so, in parallel, the paths of the partners in the pact to make Pedro Sánchez president have advanced, reaching a point where nothing is predictable. Neither how and when the term will end, nor how and when the judicial proceedings that keep the PSOE on hold will reach their deadline.

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