Begoña Gómez will finally check what her procedural offensive remains – supported by the Prosecutor’s Office – to stop the investigation against her by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado for possible influence peddling and corruption in business. Pedro Sánchez’s wife will be very attentive to what the magistrates of Section 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid determine, who meet today to deliberate and decide whether to file the case, in which, in addition to Begoña Gómez, the rector of the Complutense University of Madrid, Joaquín Goyache, and the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, whom the wife of the President of the Government recommended in writing in two public contracts.
Although the resolution will not be known until a few days later, the sources consulted point to a possible partial estimate of the appeal – as happened last May with the first archive requests on the table – in which, however, the Chamber rejects close Peinado’s investigation. What is certain is that the magistrates will try to issue the resolution unanimously.
Of the five members of Section 23, one has left for obvious reasons –Pilar Llop, former Minister of Justice in the Government of Pedro Sánchez–, so the other four will have to constitute the Chamber: Enrique Jesús Bergés, María del Rosario Esteban, Jesús Gómez-Angulo and José Sierra. Only three will make up the court, since the Madrid Court has not considered that the matter requires the presence of five magistrates, as happens, for example, when deciding on the imprisonment of a defendant. “It is an ordinary matter,” those same sources point out.
Even if, as happened almost five months ago, the Chamber limits Peinado’s investigation but allows her to continue with the investigation, the endorsement (with or without fine print) to the magistrate would mean a serious setback for Begoña Gómez’s procedural strategy, and would leave also in evidence to the Prosecutor’s Office (which on too many occasions has assumed a role more typical of the defense). And the resources of the lawyer for Pedro Sánchez’s wife are full of reproaches against Peinado, whom he has even denounced for prevarication of the marriage, the most serious crime that can be attributed to a judge, to the extent that it involves extending the shadow of suspicion regarding supposedly spurious judicial decisions, that is, adopted with the knowledge that they are unjust. The balanced image of Justice stripped of the blindfold and with the scales tricked, or something like that.
Last May, the Madrid Court did not see sufficient reasons to order the file of the case, although it limited the direction of the investigation, something that despite everything from the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of the wife of the Chief Executive was interpreted as a small victory The magistrates dismissed the first part of the complaint from Clean Hands, considering it “implausible or with erroneous data.” Regarding his alleged intervention in the rescue of Globalia (due to his meetings with Javier Hidalgo, CEO of the company, who sponsored the IE Africa Center directed by Gómez, and the businessman Víctor de Aldama, linked to the business group and one of the main commission agents of the “Koldo plot”), the Chamber made it clear that it was a “simple conjecture beyond striking temporal and personal coincidences” (although it slipped a reproach for the lack of “prior administrative controls” that would guarantee greater transparency ). In this way, the Madrid Court limited the investigation to the aid to Innova Next, the company of Barrabés, a professor in the Begoña Gómez master’s degree, where it did appreciate “sufficient objective data” that legitimized the judicial action.
But once the European Prosecutor’s Office took over the investigation of these contracts because they were funded by community funds, Begoña Gómez’s defense complained that the case was empty of purpose and that Peinado was carrying out a prospective investigation. The truth is that from then on – although the magistrate even requested a report from the SEPI on the rescue of Air Europa and the suspicious awards to Barrabés – the investigation turned towards the chair of Pedro Sánchez’s wife at the Complutense University. , to the point that Peinado decided to accuse Rector Goyache, whom he had already taken as a witness (and, therefore, with the obligation to tell the truth).
But if the Chamber refuses to archive the investigation and supports Peinado, Begoña Gómez has a “plan B” to at least try to remove the magistrate from the case: the complaint filed against the judge for prevarication and revelation of secrets. The trigger was the summons as a witness of Pedro Sánchez, forced to testify at the Moncloa Palace instead of doing so in writing, when the instructor considered that the facts for which he was going to be questioned (the president took advantage of the legal dispensation which exempted him from testifying against his wife) had not met them due to his position. These were his wife’s meetings with Barrabés at the presidential residence, one of which was briefly attended by Sánchez himself, who also met with Barrabés in Moncloa at a meeting with businessmen regarding innovation issues.
After that appearance, both the President of the Government (through the State Attorney’s Office) and Begoña Gómez filed a complaint against the magistrate, two complaints awaiting a ruling on their admission for processing (the Prosecutor’s Office has already supported that of the head of the Executive). If the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) approves the complaint by Pedro Sánchez’s wife, the investigation could be turned upside down because Peinado would be forced to deviate from the procedure when a complaint against him by a person is admitted. the one who investigates.
Article 219 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary establishes that the judge must abstain if he is “reported or accused by any of the parties as responsible for any crime or misdemeanor, provided that the complaint or accusation had given rise to the initiation of criminal proceedings.” “. In the case of Sánchez’s complaint, the case is very different, to the extent that the leader of the PSOE is not a party to the procedure (he testified as a witness), so a possible animosity or appearance of partiality would not justify Peinado he moved away.
But if he is forced to file the case, Peinado could also continue investigating Begoña Gómez, since just a few days ago the TSJ of Madrid urged him to take on a Hazte Oír complaint against her for misappropriation for the software he developed in the master at the Complutense. Some facts outside the scope of the case (the same judge initially refused to accept them by disconnecting them from his procedure) and which, therefore, would be unrelated to the decision of the Madrid Court.