The Supreme Court has agreed to dismiss the complaint filed by the

Fundación Foro Libertad Alternativa

against Ione Belarra for a crime of slander, for the tweet in which the Minister of Social Rights accused the Supreme Court itself of "prevarication" after the conviction of the former Podemos deputy

Alberto Rodríguez

.

Belarra's tweet stated: "Alberto Rodríguez was convicted despite the evidence showing that he was not there. The objective was to remove his seat. The Supreme Court pressures the President of Congress to remove it, although both know that it is not what he says the sentence. Prevarication".

The magistrates - companions of the alleged prevaricators - consider that the facts denounced in the complaint do not constitute the crime that the complaint includes: slander with publicity against State authorities in the exercise of their position and/or against the Supreme Court.

The Chamber affirms that, although Belarra's assessments are "unjustified and offensive", they are protected by freedom of expression, because the minister "limits herself to presenting her thoughts or an opinion on matters of general interest, pronounced in a context that, because of its object and the subject to which it refers, it is eminently political".

"Freedom of expression"

After reviewing his own doctrine, that of the Constitutional Court and that of the European Court of Human Rights - which establishes "the restrictive space in which criminal law must move when it conflicts with the right to freedom of expression" - he concludes that , "despite the offensive terms of the statements attributed to the defendant, to the extent that we consider them protected by her fundamental right to freedom of expression, and the political context in which they are pronounced, it is not possible to bring them into the field of Law Criminal, hence the inadmissibility of the complaint and its consequent filing.

"We can admit", the order continues, "that the basis for expressing that opinion is related to the existence of the individual vote; but this does not mean that the charge of disqualification that it entails is ignored, as long as it is attributing a crime (it is usually said the most serious crime that can be attributed to a judge in the exercise of his function) to magistrates who are part of the highest court in the nation".

"It would not hurt to use prudence when freely issuing opinions, especially when the person formulating them is part of an institution, such as the National Government, because it is not the best example of institutional responsibility, to the extent that affect another institution, such as the Judiciary, which may affect its independence," the resolution adds.

Ensure independence

The order, for which magistrate Ángel Hurtado was the rapporteur, indicates that "the criminal route should not be the way to deal with such offensive and disqualifying attacks", and recalls that there are other routes, such as that of the General Council of the Judiciary, to "ensure the independence of judges and magistrates with respect to those interferences that, even without being criminal, suppose a disturbance for the exercise of their functions".

He adds that after Belarra's words, the Permanent Commission of the CGPJ issued a "strong statement [...] in which it came out in defense of the vilified magistrates, due to the verbal excesses that the defendant had poured out on them."

The resolution closes with the warning that the inadmissibility does not mean that a similar action will never be considered criminal: "It should not be understood that, in all cases, similar expressions, issued in another context, may cease to have criminal relevance" .

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  • General Council of the Judiciary

  • Alberto Rodriguez Rodriguez

  • Ministry of Defence

  • European Court of Human Rights

  • constitutional Court

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