The Investigating Judge 12 of Valladolid, María Vanesa Díez del Rey, has sentenced the satirical magazine El Jueves and its publisher, RBA, for a crime against the right to honor by naming Polonia Castellanos, leader of the reactionary group Christian Lawyers, “jerk of the year 2024.” The publication, of a humorous and sharp nature, must pay 2,000 euros to the entity and another 4,000 to its president, offended by those comments. Castellanos filed a complaint a few months ago about this content through civil courts in Valladolid, where the Spanish Foundation of Christian Lawyers is headquartered. The head of the group reproached that El Jueves “dedicated several pages to seriously insulting and defaming both the foundation and its president” with the designation of “jerk of the year” and statements such as “defrauding donors by acting outside the law.” The issue in question was released in January 2025, with a compilation of “jerks” of 2024, among whom the authors highlighted Castellanos and Christian Lawyers in reference to various complaints made during those months.
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The ultra-Catholic group argued that this “direct qualification” of Polonia Castellanos did not fit a satirical, mocking, or humorous context but rather related to “a context of personal contempt” which for them entailed “a clear intention to offend and humiliate.” The ruling, accessed by EL PAÍS, confirms the illegitimate intrusion into the right to honor of Christian Lawyers and its president with expressions such as “ultra-Catholic lobby,” “shady operation,” “evil jerks” among accusations of “defrauding the followers, subscribers, and donors of the Foundation,” “hating homosexual people,” or “failing to comply with foundation regulations.”
The sentence requires El Jueves and its publisher to remove that section from that publication, fully publish the ruling against them in the next issue of the magazine, and pay the aforementioned fine.
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The judicial ruling highlights phrases like these: “So yes, jerk, but not a stupid jerk, but an evil jerk, a mean-spirited jerk, a selfish person who only seeks to sully the common good.” The judge considers that the context of that adjective in a cartoon was inappropriate: “This expression exceeded what can be considered freedom of expression and constitutes a violation of the right to honor.” The offended party has issued a statement celebrating the judicial ruling in her favor: “For too long some media have believed that insulting Christians was free of charge. This ruling makes it clear that hatred and defamation have significant legal consequences.”
The complainants took the case to court, in a trial held on January 9 in Valladolid, because calling their president that “lacks informative interest and cannot be protected by freedom of expression,” as authors of satirical publications or cultural or musical content with potentially offensive character usually claim. “Value judgments (such as calling Polonia Castellanos Flórez and the Foundation selfish, jerks, fraudsters, or stating that she has an excessive ego) use clearly insulting and unnecessary language,” Christian Lawyers emphasized at the time about the four pages that that issue of El Jueves in January 2025 dedicated to Castellanos. The ruling that recognizes this attack on the right to honor of the group and its president can be appealed before the Provincial Court of Valladolid.
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