The initial outrage and shock gave way to a slow strategy. The government is already digesting the hard blow dealt to it on Thursday by the Supreme Court, which condemned Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz, and is now preparing to react forcefully but without fanfare. This Sunday Pedro Sánchez will have his first direct answer, in Johannesburg, in the final press conference after the G20. But the main move will not be to declare open war with declarations, but rather a more fundamental move: quickly appoint a new attorney general who is unquestionably progressive, with prestige in the race, someone who is seen as a gesture of authority.
“What we need to do is continue to govern, exercise our powers, appoint a new prosecutor and move forward. This is the best response,” sources in the executive leadership say. Actions more than words. For the latter, the strongest is Óscar López, minister and direct rival of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “No judicial sentence, however unjust, will be able to hide the truth about what is happening in the Community of Madrid, none. It is one thing to obey and another to remain silent. No one will silence us in denouncing the shenanigans of Ayuso and those around him, no one”, concluded the socialist candidate from Madrid. Vice President Yolanda Díaz was also direct and accused some judges of “suspending their constitutional functions to intervene in politics.”
It is not yet certain, because it depends on García’s resignation, which has not yet taken place, or on the anticipation of the communication of the Supreme Court ruling, but on Tuesday the Council of Ministers is prepared in case it has to appoint the new attorney general, which would demonstrate the normality and continuity that Sánchez also wanted to convey while maintaining his international agenda with a G20 this weekend and an EU-African Union summit on Monday in Angola. From there the president will follow the decisions in case the name of the new prosecutor should be defined for Tuesday itself or next week.
Sánchez moves so much that many decisive moments catch him away from home. On Thursday he was on the helicopter from Ceuta to Malaga when the Supreme Court sentenced García: he discovered it when he landed. He was also in South Africa when he had his biggest crisis with Feijóo, in 2022, when they broke off negotiations for the renewal of the Judicial Council. The relationship never recovered. Now it is Félix Bolaños, Minister of Justice, who is leading the decision and will present the options to the president to decide on the new prosecutor.
None of the executive sources consulted deny the gravity of the situation. In La Moncloa they interpret the sentence, according to their vision without any evidence, as a new and definitive declaration of war by the Supreme Court and above all by its factotum, Judge Manuel Marchena. A man that Pedro Sánchez proposed in 2018 as a candidate for the presidency of the General Council of the Judiciary. This name was frustrated because the PP spokesperson in the Senate, Ignacio Cosidó, said that with him the PP would “control the second chamber of the Supreme Court from behind” and now he has become, in the eyes of the Executive, a sort of leader of the real opposition, the judicial one, because in La Moncloa they argue that the PP is not capable of wearing down the government.
In the Council of Ministers there is a division of opinion on how to deal with the crisis, some want to go stronger and go directly to war with the judges who made this decision, others prefer prudence and act with facts, not with high-sounding words. There is also an internal discussion on the strategy followed in the justice system, with an agreement with the PP to renew the CGPJ which some sectors now criticize while the president and Bolaños vehemently defend that it was the only possible solution.
On the contrary, there is almost total consensus in the analysis of García’s conviction. For all the ministers consulted, from different sectors, it is not just a challenge and a clear attempt to weaken the Government and force its fall. They also point out that this is a huge strategic mistake that unifies the left. “They are blinded by hatred. They did not calculate the consequences. They undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court, everyone could see that there was no evidence. They chose to do politics, not justice. And they united the entire left and gave a great advantage to Sánchez, who since 2017, when he was fighting against establishment of the PSOE to return to general secretary, tells the same story of a man against whom the powerful play dirty. It’s true and the progressive world knows it, which is why eight years later it continues to have such a strong attraction,” says one of them.
Another cabinet member also thinks their move could go awry. “Feijóo believes that his strategy of judicial opposition is working for him. Our data says otherwise. The only beneficiary is Vox. They are causing immense damage to the institutions and they are not even getting any political benefit from it. It is Cipolla’s definition of human stupidity,” he points out, referring to the Italian historian who stated, in his “Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity”, that a person is stupid if he causes harm to other people or groups without obtaining any profit or harming himself. Same.
In the PP, on the contrary, they are convinced that this is an almost fatal blow to Sánchez’s unstoppable usury. And they believe this adds to the corruption scandals in a final agony that he will decide how long to prolong. The PP is not so worried that all this could benefit Vox, because the most important thing is that the right is added and does not happen like in 2023, when they were four seats away from the absolute one. Now they are left with polls that give more than 200 with Vox, and are no longer so worried about the distribution in the bloc. “The PSOE went from being the party of Felipe González to that of The Paqui. From being the great party of the transition to that of the chistorras. We will continue to enjoy the wear and tear of the Government as we plan for the Spain to come,” sums up the Dome.
In La Moncloa they are not at all worried about Feijóo, who they see as weak and dominated by the close relationship between Vox and Ayuso. But the judges do. Or some judges. The most powerful, those of the Supreme Court, and especially Marchena. In the view of the Executive, the person who was president of the Criminal Court for 10 years and the architect of the sentence processes He continues to rule in the shadows. So much so that he managed to convince the new president of that chamber, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, to join in a condemnation of the attorney general that was not clear to him until a few weeks ago, according to various sources.
One member of the government clearly speaks of this man as the key figure. “Marchena does not forgive us for the amnesty law. He believes that with it we have destroyed his great work, the sentence of the trial. But they have gone too far. It is a message of no return. They come for us and they do not hide. We have a protected democracy”, he is indignant.
The problem now is that the institutional clash will continue and get worse. Bolaños has already pointed out, and Sánchez will probably do so too, that other cases exist. That is: the Constitutional Court. And what would happen if the Constitutional Court, with a progressive majority, presented the plan again to the Supreme Court and agreed with the Attorney General? Will the political and judicial right demand the same respect for its decision that it now asks of the Supreme Court? They ask it in the Executive. Probably not. It will be another train wreck. And the two courts will be attacked from both sides.
What is quite clear is that there will be no more respite. The war will continue as long as Sánchez is in La Moncloa. And now come the trials against his brother and in the future against his wife. And in this environment, convictions are taken for granted among judges. The president, in fact, is taking the utmost caution to avoid having a case opened against him for anything he says or does. That’s what he did in a tough Senate appearance three weeks ago. His repeated “I don’t know” was less a way to avoid opposition than a recommendation from his lawyers because the PP was trying to sue him for perjury.
The situation of tension between the executive power and the judiciary is extremely delicate and also occurs with a judiciary controlled by the right, although not completely, because the most delicate appointments must be agreed upon. In the Executive, many point to Margarita Robles, defense minister and former Supreme Court judge, as the architect of several pacts over the last 30 years that have led to the absolute dominance of judicial law in the highest court. Although the most important thing for this imbalance is the PP’s strategy of blocking the renewal while in opposition to continue appointing judges with the previous majority and then offering a 10 to 10 pact, like the current one, which has finally become a conservative majority thanks to the fact that two progressives have changed sides.
The war between the government and a very powerful justice sector never seems to be going back. Everything indicates that it will continue until the end of the legislature. But the Executive has decided to move forward and is convinced that, far from weakening it, the feeling of injustice that has spread among the left will be able to strengthen its message. Time will tell what the political effect of this controversial conviction by the Attorney General will be. But for the moment there is no indication that he will be able to overthrow the government, as the opposition claims.
