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The head of Spain’s Supreme Court on Friday defended the independence of the judiciary after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez suggested some judges might be colluding with the main opposition Popular Party (PP).
Sanchez, during an informal talk with journalists on Wednesday, suggested that some judges were providing the conservatives with information on the corruption probes directed at the inner circle of the ruling Socialist Party.
The Popular Party, he said, was playing “with marked cards”.
In a statement posted on the court’s website Friday, the president of Spain’s Supreme Court, Isabel Perello appeared to respond to the recent comments.
While she did not directly refer to Sanchez’s comments, she did stress the need for the judiciary to work unimpeded.
“The rule of law requires that judges and courts be able to exercise their duties solely in accordance with the rule of law, without direct or indirect pressure from any power group, public or private,” she wrote.
“The work of judges and magistrates can and, where appropriate, should be criticised, but what is not acceptable is to question it in a generalised and permanent manner, attributing political biases to members of the judiciary, as this undermines public confidence in the judiciary, causing serious institutional damage.”
Perello, 66, is also the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), a legal watchdog responsible for appointing judges and ensuring the judiciary’s independence.
Sanchez is grappling with a series of legal probes that have focused on a former transport minister as well as his wife and, most recently, his brother.
While Sanchez and has dismissed the cases as baseless and part of a right-wing “smear campaign”, the judicial onslaught has given his political opponents fresh ammunition to attack him.
PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has already rejected Sanchez’s allegation, calling it “very desperate”.
“If anyone has tried to politicise justice it is the prime minister himself,” he told journalists on Thursday.
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