Begoña Gómez’s advisor in Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez, activates her latest strategy to stop the opening of an oral trial against both of them issued by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, before forcibly retiring from the judiciary on September 27, after reaching the age of 72.
The senior official of the Presidency of the Government has appealed before the Provincial Court of Madrid that the investigator of the case sent her to the bench, along with Pedro Sánchez’s wife, after holding a preliminary hearing in which she was not present, despite having expressed her interest in attending in writing.
Álvarez’s defense intends that Section 23 of the Madrid Court proceed to “declare the nullity of the hearing held on September 8 without the presence of his client, taking the proceedings back to the moment immediately prior to his appointment”, which would imply the annulment of the order with which Judge Peinado sent them both to a trial by a popular court.
She had already previously appealed to the magistrate’s “no” in reform to postpone the holding of this hearing until her return from summer vacation, which occurred on September 28, which would imply – according to her rejected request – that it would be another member of the Race, foreseeably Judge Carlos Valle, who would decide whether to send her, along with her boss, Gómez, to the bench or archive the proceedings against her.
Now, as LA RAZÓN has learned for the first time, it has raised its allegations to the highest court to the Court of Instruction number 41, which will have to rule.
The assistant to the wife of the President of the Government maintains that Peinado called the hearing just 24 hours in advance and, with this, violated her right to defense by not allowing her to be present.
Through his lawyer, the criminal lawyer, José María de Pablo, also questioned the circumstances that explain Judge Peinado’s haste in scheduling and holding the hearing.
In this regard, he reported that the “real reason for the urgent notice” was that the instructor “had approved his vacation plan,” which began on September 9 (the day after the hearing) and lasted until the 18th.
In the opinion of Álvarez’s legal representation, this point cannot prevail over the procedural guarantees of his client. “It cannot prevail over the accused’s right to defense,” he argues, and then remembers that this fundamental right “is on a higher hierarchical level than any organizational issue of the court.”
The appeal insists that Álvarez’s absence – he was enjoying a cruise that departed from Miami (USA) – cannot be interpreted as a voluntary decision, especially after he had expressly expressed his intention to attend. According to his lawyer, preventing him from participating in a judicial action of these characteristics generates material defenselessness.
The director of Government Presidency Programs maintains that the fundamental right to defense and legal assistance includes the possibility for the accused to be present in the procedural acts that directly affect him.
From this perspective, he considers that the preliminary hearing had special importance, since it addressed a decisive decision for the future of the case: the eventual opening of an oral trial.
“The material defenselessness of someone who has not even been summoned to the hearing, which she has indicated with only 24 hours’ notice, making it metaphysically impossible to manage a flight to Spain in such a short period of time and preventing her, therefore, from taking the final word of the hearing to make the statements that she wishes to make in her defense is obvious,” she claims in the new appeal.
Judge Peinado dismissed the first appeal that she filed on this matter, following the criteria of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, alluding to the fact that “the presence of the person under investigation is not imperative for the holding of the hearing” and resolved that “non-appearance does not entail the cause of real defenselessness.”
On the other hand, the magistrate stated that having scheduled the preliminary hearing on a date after last September 27 – as Álvarez’s defense claimed – however, would have violated “the duty of speed” established by the Law of the Jury Court by which this procedure is governed.
The Prosecutor’s Office did not support the appeal of the PSOE leader’s wife’s assistant, but reproached Peinado for scheduling the hearing 24 hours in advance and prior to going on vacation and retiring: “The speed indicated is not usual. “It is neither desirable nor acceptable to go over the heads of professionals.”