In its current concluding phase, the criminal proceedings against Begoña Gómez, wife of the Prime Minister, maintain the appearance of continuous procedural waste. This is an important procedure, due to the people involved, either as accused or as witnesses, and due to the consequences that may arise from this matter for the future.
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The work of the investigating judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, has given rise to various controversies since the beginning of the case, two years ago, and his decisions have been permanently under the scrutiny of the Provincial Court of Madrid, which has been limiting his work.
The thoroughness of the task carried out by the magistrate has contrasted with the eagerness shown by the Court to ensure that the well-known principle that seeks to guarantee procedural economy in judicial proceedings was observed. But at the point of conclusions, everything indicates that a certain contagion effect has occurred for the entire case and in all its aspects.
The popular action —led by the ultra association Hazte Oír— has presented the corresponding brief with the requests for sentences for Begoña Gómez, which reach 24 years in prison, for four alleged crimes: influence peddling, embezzlement, business corruption, and misappropriation. To have a point of comparison on the magnitude of this proposal, it should be noted that the crime of homicide, as provided for in article 138 of the Penal Code, carries a penalty ranging from 10 to 15 years of deprivation of liberty. Murder, as an aggravated form of homicide —for example, committed with treachery—, according to article 139 of the same text, carries between 15 and 25 years, one more than those requested for Begoña Gómez.
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It is well known that, according to a consolidated saying in the halls of justice, paper endures everything. To which it could now be added that social networks endure even more. But if we have to analyze the theses of the popular action in light of the principle of proportionality, such a high request does not quite fit with the conduct described in the brief sent to the court, nor with the evidentiary support it includes. The Prosecutor’s Office has seen it clearly and has not presented any request for a sentence, which is consistent with its previous requests for the case to be dismissed. The popular action, on the other hand, understands that Begoña Gómez’s assistant and advisor at La Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez, should receive 22 years in prison, for the support given to the Prime Minister’s wife in her professional activities, and requests 6 years for the businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, the alleged beneficiary of that work.
Begoña Gómez’s criminal conduct would have consisted of accessing an extraordinary professorship at the Complutense University, taking advantage of it to boost her professional career, “despite not being a university graduate” and without there having been “an open and competitive academic selection process.” It is not recorded, however, that the accused profited from said position. The accusation emphasizes that this unpaid position served as a platform for influence peddling, among others, those exercised for the benefit of Barrabés, on the basis of offering “interlocution with the Prime Minister.” The benefit from the software created by several companies for said professorship is described as a future hypothesis if it had continued its work.
Embezzlement, in turn, would have occurred due to the assistant’s support for the accused’s private professional work. The wives of presidents have had assistants, and it is unlikely that parties would want a specific law to distinguish between institutional activity and private work, due to the difficulty of separating them with absolute clarity. The defense argues this by asking, when requesting the dismissal of the case, whether “does the cook who prepares a private meal for the president’s family commit embezzlement?”
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