The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has sent a letter to Judge Juan Carlos Peinado to request that he testify in writing as a witness in the case opened against his wife, Begoña Gómez. “It is my will, as it cannot be otherwise, to collaborate with the Administration of Justice, always within the framework of strict compliance with the Constitution,” says the text, to which EL PAÍS has had access, adding: “Therefore, in order to guarantee it, this declaration must be made in accordance with the provisions of art. 412.2 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which provides that, due to my role as President of the Government, my declaration must be submitted in writing. It is clear that my appearance is inseparable from this condition,” says Sánchez in the letter, which ends by assuring that as President of the Executive he must “comply with the law.”
With this document, which is only five paragraphs long, the head of the Executive is making a move after Peinado had placed him in a difficult situation. The magistrate signed the resolution on Monday ordering his summons as a witness, which has already been appealed by the Prosecutor’s Office and his wife’s lawyer, the former socialist minister Antonio Camacho. This document, which is dated last Friday – the same day that the popular accusations, led by the far-right party Vox, asked him to call Sánchez to appear – agrees that the magistrate will travel to the La Moncloa palace on July 30 to question the president in person starting at 11:00. The judge argued that this initiative was “convenient, useful and pertinent”, after Begoña Gómez invoked her right not to testify before him.
![sanchez letter](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/VUONEC464JC67LWMRDYVNAPZAE.jpg?auth=cd80e5be8e1096b7e7236a88e2a1707ff634b29b188db77919ffb297d5804096&width=414)
The legislation provides that members of the Government may testify in writing as witnesses in judicial proceedings when these concern facts that they have “known by reason of their position” – this has been done, for example, by several of the current ministers in the Pegasus case opened in the National Court; or did it in the past Esperanza Aguirre in the Gürtel case when he had already left the Presidency of the Community of Madrid. But the magistrate, who assured that he was investigating “all the acts, conduct and behaviour that Gómez has carried out since her husband became President of the Government”, is now clinging to the precept of the law that allows him to question a member of the Executive in person and in his office when it comes to “matters that he has not been aware of by reason of his position”.
This is precisely the point that constitutes the great contradiction that Judge Peinado is in, according to the defence and the prosecution. In their opinion, he cannot be investigating an alleged crime of influence peddling allegedly committed by Begoña Gómez in her capacity as the president’s wife and intend to question Sánchez only as her husband. This is what the defendant’s lawyer explains in the appeal sent to the judge on Tuesday: “It is obvious that what the investigating judge is trying to investigate is an alleged alleged influence of my client on the president and, if this is the case, it is in light of the position he constitutionally occupies as president of the Government.”
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
The Prosecutor’s Office also maintains that the alleged events under suspicion cannot be dissociated from Sánchez’s status as president. And the public prosecutor, who has already denounced the “procedural drift” of the case, has even accused the magistrate of resorting to “subterfuges” to be able to go in person to La Moncloa to question the head of the Executive. “The possibility of a written statement has been sidelined and excluded,” said prosecutor José Manuel San Baldomero, who criticises Peinado for having “focused more” on the “accessory circumstances of the recording of images of the witness in the Moncloa palace, than on motivating the decision in question.”
Sánchez’s letter, dated Wednesday, details that he learned on Monday through the media of Peinado’s decision to question him as a witness – at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the government’s spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, assured that the president had not yet received the notification. “It is my will, as it cannot be otherwise, to collaborate with the Administration of Justice,” adds the head of the Executive, who continues: “Always within the framework of strict compliance with the Spanish Constitution and the Law that binds us all and that are the maximum guarantee of our State of Law.”
“I must state that, as President of the Government of Spain, I have the duty and responsibility to comply with the Law and to preserve the proper meaning of the institution that I represent by election of the Congress of Deputies,” continues Sánchez’s letter, which concludes in this way: “I have no doubt that VI will share the need for the utmost respect for our constitutional and legal framework and, therefore, for what is established by the Criminal Procedure Law regarding the institution of the President of the Government.”
The times of resources
Following this letter from the head of the Executive, all parties are eagerly awaiting the next steps. The Prosecutor’s Office believes that the appeals that have been presented to Judge Peinado himself against Sánchez’s summons, a previous step before being able to raise them to the Provincial Court of Madrid, will not reach this second instance before July 30, so there would not be a higher ruling that would correct or support the magistrate – and he could go ahead with his intention to hold the appearance. In fact, regarding the times that are being handled, the Madrid Court has set for two months from now (September 30) the deliberation, vote and ruling of some previous appeals that were presented against another resolution of the judge, with which it was requested (among other things) that the summary be closed.
The Criminal Procedure Act also provides that husbands, as well as other direct relatives of those under investigation, “are exempt from the obligation to testify” against their wives in order to guarantee the rights of the defence. However, the law provides that it is the magistrate who must “warn” them of this, and that he must also tell the witness that, although he does not want to answer anyone’s questions, he can “make any statements he considers necessary”.
#Pedro #Sánchez #reminds #Judge #Peinado #declare #writing