During the years of the democratic transition, we feared the coup temptations of an army with Francoist roots and culture. It was logical and we were not mistaken when the farce of February 23 occurred, with the parade of tanks in Valencia and the assault on the Congress of Deputies by Colonel Tejero. A strange night, in which the myth of a monarch who had saved democracy by sending the military back to their barracks was invented. Surely the reality was not so simple and even less so clear. But then came the socialist Ministry of Defense of Narcís Serra, who, with salary increases, decorations, and bouquets of flowers, managed to deactivate the warlike ardor of some milicos" still very rancid. Instead, the transition was not thoroughly carried out in a judiciary formed by Francoists and their disciples, waiting for biology and generational renewal to bring about a modernizing function that never arrived.In the judicial sphere, there has rather been an inverse transition towards making politics and exercising power roles. It is a world too endogamous, classist, and retrograde for it to be aired out, at least at the high levels of the career. Another thing are the rank-and-file judges, deprived of means to efficiently carry out their important function. In the upper echelons there is a world of favors, of stale lineages, and of an extremely corporate spirit, and, why not say it, with a desire to act politically. We are not only where we were, but with the general reactionary and post-democratic wave, this power has recovered its oldest version. In Spain, judges are those who best understood José María Aznar's enigmatic phrase from a couple of years ago: “El que pueda hacer, que haga”.The judiciary is today the authentic Trojan horse against democratic institutions and culture. The judicial elite no longer settles for exercising its role as the third power of the state, but rather establishes supremacy and control over others. And not only that: it becomes the necessary ally of the extreme right by creating the conditions for it to come to power. It judicializes political life by intervening in an interested and arbitrary manner, brings up incredible cases, issues sentences without any basis or proof, and dismisses and delays what could affect its political acolytes. Perjury no longer seems an exceptional behavior but rather the norm. The affiliated media will then do the corresponding justifying work. I remember that a few years ago, at a conference in Buenos Aires, the former vice-president of Bolivia and theorist of the Latin American left, Álvaro García Linera, warned that coups d'état today are carried out by the judiciary and not by the army: Latin American military personnel no longer do training stays in American academies, but rather it is the judges who undertake immersions, with the same function, in some North American universities.

There is a demolition underway, but it is not just that of the government (this will largely depend on how long Sánchez's investiture partners hold out, because he intends to hold out) but that of the entire institutional and political edifice of the Spanish state. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the demolition that has been occurring for years against more limited objectives is now happening on the scale of the Spanish government. The judicial coup état has been a reality within Spanish political life at least since 2010, with the Constitutional Court's ruling on the Statute of Catalonia, and this has been repeatedly denounced – preaching in the desert, needless to say – by various progressive jurists. Afterwards, we have come to know that other powers of the State, such as the Public Prosecutor's Office or the police, were working against rulers and elected representatives, as we saw with the cases against Catalan independence and the Spanish left. Finally, it has also happened to the PSOE, for having sided with the enemies of the Spanish fatherland, that is to say, for having built a governing majority precisely with the Catalan (and Basque) independentists, with the Spanish left, and with almost all minorities represented in Congress.It is evident that the PSOE, with Sánchez at the forefront, finds itself cornered and is carrying out a confused forward flight in which it is very difficult to know what is true and what is not in the avalanche of filth that falls daily upon Spanish public life. It is also evident that the Popular Party acts with privileged information, to the point of announcing or incorporating into its arguments and speeches the next moves of judges and police officers. It is another piece of evidence that an former president of the Spanish government has never before been indicted, let alone on the basis of indications, in a country that has been governed by individuals such as Felipe González, José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy, possessors of fortunes and assets over which the most absolute opacity prevails. The fact that the UCO entered the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz street in Madrid this Wednesday should, it is presumed, be equivalent to the search of Génova street in the same city in 2013, with the detail that we have known for many years that the PP headquarters was paid for with illegal money. at Ferraz street in Madrid, it is presumed that it should be equivalent to the search of Génova street in the same city in 2013, with the detail that we have known for many years that the PP headquarters was paid for with illegal money.We have also recently seen Mariano Rajoy, María Dolores de Cospedal, and other PP leaders parade before the courts in the Kitchen case (abusive use of the police to spy on political opponents), and leave with their heads held high after declaring that they knew nothing or did not remember, assisted by a magistrate who was in a hurry to interrupt the most uncomfortable interrogations. Tomorrow, Sánchez's brother will also appear before the courts, for another case fabricated from inspirations and suppositions. Feijóo is right about one thing, and that is that the atmosphere is suffocating. The right's total attack consists of wanting to govern on top of a wasteland covered with the ruins of the rule of law. They have models of how to do it (the falls of Lula da Silva in Brazil and António Costa in Portugal, based on false charges) and they apply them thoroughly.

Santos Cerdán declared in the Senate that "There is a before and after the photo with PuigdemontA man facing prison defends himself as best he can, and in these times in Spain and the world, that amounts to saying his prosecution is political. Yes: when Pedro Sánchez abandoned him, Cerdán was left reeling. Therefore, it's pertinent to ask whether there's nothing to the alleged corruption, or whether corruption and Cerdán's judicial persecution are simultaneously compatible with an amnesty law, said the Vox senator questioning him. Perhaps he didn't realize the gravity of what he was admitting. fachoferaHe spoke with the offended tone of the coup-plotting generals, insisting: "There is something crucial for which you and your entire government should be tried, and that is having granted amnesty to coup plotters who wanted to break up Spain." Cerdán had just been handed the opportunity on a silver platter: "I've said that from the beginning. You're right about that: it all stems from here."

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.

Daniel Escribano (Palma, 1978) holds a PhD in sociology and is a translator. He has published Political trials under Spanish militant democracy (Documenta Balear), in which he analyzes four judicial processes: the conviction of Batasuna senator Miguel Castells for pointing the finger at the government for the dirty war against ETA, the case of the siege of the Parliament in 2011, the case against Valtónic and the judicial repression of the Process.

The prosecutor in the Pujol family trial stated this morning that "Political issues cannot be introduced into a procedural, legal, and substantive matter such as the investigation and prosecution of crimes." The statement is so perfect that if you asked an actor to say it... Poland And adding canned laughter in the background would work as a gag.