The judge deploys an unusual investigation into Begoña Gómez, breaking the secrecy that he himself imposed

The resurgence of Clean Hands as a false union dedicated to filing complaints occurs after a Madrid judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, decided to open an investigation based on one of them. In this case it was a few pages that reproduced information from various media – including a hoax – about actions by Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, in which she was accused of having influenced the allocation of public money. Peinado did not consult the Prosecutor’s Office, opened a case and granted Gómez the status of being investigated.

At the same time, the head of the Investigative Court number 41 of Madrid declared the case secret, a decision that Peinado himself did not respect, “exceptionally”, to deliver protected documentation to Vox, whose appearance as a popular accusation he had accepted. The next milestone of the investigation will be the taking of statements from six witnesses, agreed upon and disseminated (despite the secrecy) after the elite unit of the Civil Guard to which it commissioned a report responded that it saw no evidence of a crime.

These are the five unusual and even allegedly criminal decisions – depending on which judicial operator you ask – that Peinado has adopted since last April 16:

The opening of proceedings based on published information and without consulting the prosecutor

Judge Juan Carlos Peinado’s decision to open a criminal case against Begoña Gómez based on journalistic information is unusual. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court establishes: “Journalistic news, by itself, although legitimate in the function it performs, does not legitimize any popular actor to convert the journalistic story into a story of punishable events.”

In this case, the complainant is the Clean Hands pseudo-union, which has reemerged from the ostracism into which it fell after being tried, and later acquitted, as a criminal organization. Her complaint against Begoña Gómez consisted of eight media reports, among which was a hoax published by The Objective, in which a subsidy was attributed to the wife of the President of the Government when the recipient is actually another person who shares the same name. and first surname with her.

The law does not require the judge to consult the Prosecutor’s Office before opening a case, although it is very common for him to do so. Peinado chose to avoid it and, when the Public Ministry appealed the decision directly to the court higher than him, the judge expressed his discomfort in writing: “Although it is within his full rights, it is totally unusual.”

The secret for an investigation whose progress has been reported by the judge himself

In his order opening the proceedings, Judge Peinado decrees the secrecy of the proceedings according to “the nature of the facts reported” by Manos Cleans, as well as by “the person or possible persons who, with different degrees of participation in them “may be criminally responsible.”

The Criminal Procedure Law, the extensive manual that guides a judge in the investigation of a case, establishes in its article 302 that there are two reasons to decree the secrecy of the proceedings: to avoid a serious risk to the life of a person or “ prevent a situation that could seriously compromise the result of the investigation or process.”

Preliminary proceedings 1146/2024 were opened on April 16 for possible crimes of corruption in the private sector and influence peddling. This opening, despite the secrecy that weighed on the case, was communicated by the judge through the press office of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM).

Six weeks later, the entire court investigation has been based on the analysis of public documentation. By admitting to processing a complaint based on published news, the object of the investigation was well known to all those possibly involved. Still with the case under secrecy, the summons of six witnesses was released, with their names and surnames, by the same press office and again by order of Judge Peinado.

What “situation that could seriously compromise the outcome of the investigation” did Judge Peinado intend to avoid with the secrecy of the case that he dictated and that he later adapted to his desires for publicity? According to the Provincial Court of Madrid, which has annulled the secrecy, the judge should have motivated that decision and never did. The judges of the higher court, in responding to the prosecutor’s appeal, also expose the nonsense of allowing the accused to “become aware of the results of the proceedings” when the judge had decided to keep the case secret.

By the time the Provincial Court ruled, the judge had already ordered the measure to be lifted, angered because El País published the conclusions of the report he commissioned from the Civil Guard and in which his elite unit concluded that there were no indications of crime in the conduct. of the investigated. In fact, he has opened an investigation to find out the origin of said leak.

The delivery to Vox of documentation of a case on which secrecy weighed

The lifting of the secrecy of the summary has revealed information about the judge’s actions that may have unforeseeable consequences. Magistrate Juan Carlos Peinado delivered documentation of a case that was subject to reinforced secrecy, which he himself had dictated, to one of the parties appearing: the Vox party.

The Law establishes that only the judge and the Prosecutor’s Office can have access to the proceedings when the case is secret, but on May 23, a “procedure of record” that appears in the summary certified that the attorney for the Vox political party, at that Peinado had admitted as a popular accusation, received from the court “digital copy of the documentation and testimonial statements whose delivery was agreed by providence [del juez] dated May 17, 2024.” That ruling, with the judge’s signature, establishes that “the content of the witness statements” and the “content of the documentary presented” by the director of El Confidencial, Ignacio Cardero, be delivered to Vox.

The magistrate did not lift the secrecy of the proceedings until May 24, complaining that El País had had access to the report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard that exonerated Begoña Gómez. According to the judge, it no longer made sense to extend the measure. The Penal Code punishes in its article 466.2 the crime of revealing secrets with between two and four years in prison if it is committed by a judge.

The judge alludes in another document to an alleged “partial” lifting of the secret, which, however, he has not issued. Regarding the delivery of the documentation to Vox, he assures that it is an “exceptional” decision to guarantee “equality of arms” with respect to Gómez’s defense, which he allowed to attend the testimony of two journalists as witnesses, a decision that is also unusual because the secret is still in force. This documentation delivered on May 24 to Vox is not yet in the possession of Gómez’s representation, despite having requested it.

The order for your court to supervise the prosecutor

The law establishes that when the instructor decrees the secrecy of the proceedings, only the judge and the Prosecutor’s Office will hear the case. However, the prosecutor assigned to the case learned of the opening of proceedings and the summons of six witnesses through the media, after Peinado provided the TSJM communications office with the information to issue a press release. In the case of the opening of proceedings, the prosecutor was notified more than two weeks after the judge made that decision and issued an order.

On May 23, Peinado issued an order in which he ordered his lawyer from the Administration of Justice – the secretary of the court – to prepare a report “that reveals the frequency with which personal visits are made” by the prosecutor to the court. in order to know the decisions of the magistrate to which he had access only through the press. Peinado also asked the official to reflect the “insistence [del fiscal] “in knowing the resolutions that are issued, even before being notified.”

An investigation with the Civil Guard and later, without it

The relevance that the judge has given to the Clean Hands complaint, including seven pieces of information and one hoax, is reflected in the assignment he gives to the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard to act as judicial police in the procedure. Some media highlighted this decision and related it to the magnitude of the case.

The report from the elite unit of the armed institute has ruled out that Begoña Gómez’s intervention led to any award from the central Administration. With the result of the same, the judge has made two decisions: that the files that the Civil Guard has already examined be sent to him and that he summon six witnesses of whom the UCO investigators rule out having committed any crime. They are responsible for the public company red.es and the businessman who shared a chair with Begoña Gómez and who has a company that participated in the UTE that the president’s wife recommended.