The name of Juan Carlos Peinado García (El Tiemblo, Ávila, 1954) was made known in April 2024, when he opened an investigation into the wife of the President of the Government, Begoña Gómez. The order of the 16th declared the case secret before "the person or possible persons who, with different degrees of participation in them, may be criminally responsible." The significance of the resolution was soon reflected: eight days later, when it became known, Sánchez announced that he was taking five days of reflection to decide whether to resign.
Peinado was then a few months away from turning 70 and had just asked the General Council of the Judiciary for the last possible extension to delay his retirement until he was 72, which he turns today. Thus ends a career that began in 1994, when he was already in his forties and entered the judiciary for the so-called third shift, taking advantage of his experience as town hall secretary. Before arriving at the Court of Instruction 41 of Madrid in 2016, he went through civil, criminal and contentious courts in Arenas de San Pedro, Talavera de la Reina, Albacete and Getafe.
The two years, five months and five days that elapsed between the opening of the Begoña case and last Monday's order sending the president's wife to trial have been full of procedural and political vicissitudes. Peinado has not only avoided a myriad of resources that sought to close the case, starting with those of the Madrid Prosecutor's Office, but he has also had to avoid a complaint for prevarication by the State Attorney's Office on behalf of the President of the Government himself.
It was presented as the magistrate left the Moncloa Palace, where, in an unprecedented procedure, he had just questioned the President of the Government as a witness about his wife's activities. The complaint was filed by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid in a harsh order that came closer to fining Pedro Sánchez for procedural bad faith than to agreeing to an investigation against the judge. That has not prevented the Government and its entourage from always maintaining the label of "prevaricator."
That July 30, 2024 was not Peinado's only visit to La Moncloa. On the eve of Holy Week the following year, he crossed the complex's security barrier again to question, this time, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts. If Sánchez's appearance had been brief and cold - as a husband, he chose not to respond -, Félix Bolaños' was long and tense. Long because it started almost an hour late, waiting for the platform that the instructor demanded to be placed above the witness. And tense because the judge even told the witness that he was avoiding the questions - he couldn't do it - and that he didn't like the smile he was showing.
This meeting had two consequences. The first, that the minister reported the judge to the CGPJ. Neither that complaint nor those that were added have been successful, as confirmed this week by the Permanent Commission. The second, that Peinado took the minister to the Supreme Court, asking that he be investigated for the hiring of Gómez's advisor in La Moncloa. The High Court's emphatic refusal has also been government ammunition.
The president's wife was not interrogated in the palace where she resides, but in the battered courts of Plaza de Castilla, as the investigation progressed and the scope of the accusations grew. Begoña Gómez had to appear five times on the sixth floor of the building, where she never accepted questions other than those from the defense.
The Madrid Court has corrected Judge Peinado numerous times. Three times he had to tell him that the rescue of Air Europa was outside his investigation. The instructor's stubbornness served the Executive to continue fueling criticism of an action that they considered "politicized."
The public reproaches intensified especially when, last June, he prohibited Begoña Gómez from leaving the country and imposed biweekly appearances on her. Her statement that the Security Forces could help her escape led the Unified Police Union (SUP) to demand the intervention of the CGPJ, which referred what happened to the TSJ in Madrid. The court saw nothing punishable.
In addition to lifting these precautionary measures, the Court has been revoking other key decisions, such as the registration of businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés or the indictment of the rector of the Complutense University.
