The Provincial Court of Madrid has revoked Judge Juan Carlos Peinado's order to collect all emails of Begoña Gómez from 2018 to 2025. The magistrates deem the measure lacks proper justification and violates principles of proportionality and necessity. However, the court upholds the embezzlement charges against Gómez and her assistant.
Section 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid has upheld the appeals filed by the Prosecutor's Office and Begoña Gómez's defense, annulling the order issued by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado on September 3, 2025. This order requested emails sent and received by Gómez from her institutional Moncloa account, from July 18, 2018, to September 23, 2025, which were forwarded to the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard on November 2.
In a ruling dated December 9, the three magistrates state that Peinado's resolution, by using the form of a providencia, fails to mention the legal requirements, such as the severity of the offense, indications, and necessity of the measure. “The aforementioned resolution, by using the form of providencia, does not mention any of the required requirements, which gives reason to the appellants, resulting in a measure lacking the necessary justification, breaching the principles of proportionality, necessity, and suitability,” the ruling states.
The judges liken email seizure to wiretaps, stressing that the judge must make their own deductions from objective data, not delegate to police. The measure impacts fundamental rights and must pass tests of specificity, suitability, exceptionalism, necessity, and proportionality.
Nevertheless, the Court endorses the embezzlement charges against Begoña Gómez, wife of President Pedro Sánchez, and her assistant Cristina Álvarez. The judge is probing whether Álvarez, described as an “intimate friend” rather than an expert official, diverted duties to aid Gómez in her University Complutense de Madrid work. It also examines Gómez's potential influence on companies linked to Juan Carlos Barrabés, recipient of public contracts, for crimes including private sector corruption, influence peddling, intrusion, and misappropriation. Peinado proposes that if it goes to trial, the case be heard by a jury.
