Sanchez files suit against Judge Peinado for malfeasance

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has filed a complaint this Tuesday against the magistrate Juan Carlos Peinado through a document signed by the State Attorney’s Office. According to sources from the Executive, the president has taken this initiative in “defense of the institution of the Presidency” and after invoking his right not to testify as a witness in the case opened against his wife, Begoña Gómez. After a week of doubts, the head of the Executive has opted for this option after Peinado appeared at 10.20 this morning at the La Moncloa palace to try to question him in the summary that he is promoting for alleged crimes of influence peddling and corruption in business. The Prosecutor’s Office and the defense had appealed the holding of this appearance, which the judge wanted to record and which barely lasted a few minutes.

The complaint signed by the State Attorney’s Office, which is addressed to the High Court of Justice of Madrid and to which EL PAÍS has had access, insists that the magistrate has issued an “unfair” and “knowingly” ruling by ordering Sánchez’s summons. In addition, the document clarifies that this initiative does not constitute “an attack on the Judiciary”; but rather, precisely the defense against a member of “that power” who has “moved away” from the proper exercise of the right. “There are multiple elements that make it evident that the taking of the statement carried out contravenes the regulations that regulate it, depriving the person who holds the Presidency of one of the powers of the State of the guarantees offered by the Criminal Procedure Law since 1882,” points out the 35-page document.

The complaint stresses that the judge “has deviated from the usual methods of interpretation” by preventing Sánchez from testifying in writing, as the regulations allow for members of the Government when they are to appear in an investigation as witnesses for facts that they have learned about by reason of their position. To justify this, Peinado alleged that he wanted to ask him about issues that had nothing to do with his position, but with his status as Begoña Gómez’s husband. This has led, finally, to the PSOE leader invoking this Tuesday another precept contemplated in the Criminal Procedure Law that provides that husbands, as well as other direct relatives of those investigated, “are exempt from the obligation to testify” against their wives to guarantee the rights of the defense.

“[Peinado] “He did not dedicate a single line to motivating or justifying why the declaration should not be made in writing,” criticises the State Attorney’s Office, which harshly censures the judge’s actions: “There is a long history of how judicial resolutions can influence the political future of a country, both in Spain and abroad. […] It is clear that the way in which a statement is taken has an impact that the legislator is not insensitive to, when he distinguishes between its written or verbal performance, in court or outside it. None of this has been respected.

The complaint focuses on the contradiction that, in the opinion of the Government, the judge is committing by trying to question Sánchez as Begoña Gómez’s husband, when he is investigating her for being the wife of the President of the Executive. “The logical result of the previous argument is that we question what specific question can be asked of the witness regarding any fact that he knows, and that is not ‘because of his position’,” says the State Attorney’s Office, which continues: “We do not logically consider it possible to ask any question linked to the investigation that the witness could know if it is not related to his position, precisely because of the typical construction of the only crime for which the questioning is justified.”

“The facts investigated are those that form the object of the investigation and it turns out that, in this case, the object of the investigation – however broad it may be – is limited to a specific chronological scope: the moment in which the witness became president, and not the moment in which he became the husband of the person under investigation. It is his position, not his marital status, that is relevant for the purposes of any question related to the investigation. Therefore, it is legally incomprehensible that the witness should be dismissed. [la posibilidad de que Sánchez declare por escrito]and also without motivation (perhaps because there is none),” the complaint states.

Two minutes of statement

On Tuesday, La Moncloa was the scene of an unprecedented event in the current democratic era: a judge going to the Government headquarters to take a statement in person from the head of the Executive. However, the magistrate was unable to meet all his expectations, despite his efforts to hold this meeting. “They came to record a montage with a clear objective: to erode the image of the President of the Government,” said the Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers. Natalia Junquera reports. “[Peinado] He came to La Moncloa to have his photo taken. To feed the debates for this summer. And in the next few days we will see the images leaked in some conservative media. This montage was missing today’s episode,” Alegría stressed, before concluding: “Time puts everyone in their place.”

After leaving the hearing (which took place in a room set up for the occasion), Begoña Gómez’s lawyer, the former socialist minister Antonio Camacho, explained how it had developed: “The statement lasted exactly two minutes.” According to him, the judge asked Sánchez if he had any relationship with any of the suspects and he said that he was the spouse of the accused; he was then asked if he was exempt from making a statement, and he said yes. The minutes were then drawn up. “We consider that it was unnecessary to affect the functioning of an essential institution in the State,” Camacho added in reference to the Presidency of the Government: “It made no sense to carry out this procedure.” The lawyer stressed that Sánchez was “calm.” “It is very difficult in this procedure to predict what will happen,” the former minister criticised.

Tuesday’s meeting was surrounded by expectation, and also by controversy. The ultra-Catholic organisation Hazte Oír, which appeared as a popular accusation in the case, had called for a rally at 9.30am near La Moncloa under the slogan: “Sanchez has to show his face. We are going to be near Moncloa so that he can hear the clamour of the Spanish people. It is time to demand explanations. For Spain, for our rights.” But only around thirty people responded to the call: “It’s a mafia, it’s not a Government”; “Sanchez resign, Sanchez go to prison”; and “Sanchez scoundrel, Spain does not keep quiet” were some of the slogans chanted by the few demonstrators, who also uttered insults.

For their part, the prosecution and Gómez’s defence have denounced the procedural drift that the procedure has taken. The public prosecutor insists that the magistrate is promoting an investigation that is “lacking in evidence”, prospective – prohibited by law -, “disproportionate”, full of “dysfunctions” and that “lacks the minimum precision”; in addition to accusing the judge of not sufficiently justifying his decisions. Along the same lines, the prosecutor José Manuel San Baldomero has stressed that there is “no trace” of the “cascading influence peddling” that the instructor Peinado has alleged in order to go to La Moncloa, where he has been accompanied by the prosecutor, the lawyers for the defence and the Vox lawyer, Marta Castro, who coordinates the five popular accusations.

The case against Begoña Gómez began on April 16, when Judge Peinado opened proceedings after receiving a complaint from the pseudo-union Manos Limpias. The details of the investigation have not been clarified until now. But the magistrate’s resolutions show that Gómez’s relationship with the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés is being investigated; her connection with Javier Hidalgo, who was CEO of Globalia, the group that owns Air Europa —a company rescued by the Council of Ministers in 2020—; and the links between the president’s wife and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), where she co-directed a chair.