Judgment 1000/2025 of the Supreme Court has placed the Attorney General at the center of public debate and has opened a legal can of worms that goes far beyond a specific case. It not only analyzes whether there was an improper leak of information about a highly publicized tax proceeding; it also discusses how far the Public Prosecutor’s Office can go when informing public opinion, how a leak is investigated in the digital age, and what the presumption of innocence truly means when media attention destroys everything.
In this article, I want to explain to you, clearly and systematically, what the Supreme Court resolves in the Attorney General judgment, what its key points are, and why the dissenting opinion of two justices could be so relevant.
What happened in the trial that ended with the conviction of the Attorney General?
Background facts
To understand the Attorney General judgment, it is essential to start from the origin of everything: an email that should never have left the private sphere between a lawyer and the Public Prosecutor’s Office… and that ended up opening a criminal case in the Supreme Court.
Tax inspection and compliance email
The Tax Agency was investigating Maxwell Cremona S.L., a company linked to the person who now exercises the private prosecution. The Inspection found evidence of the commission
What does the judgment that convicts Álvaro García Ortíz say?
The special jurisdiction of the Attorney General: institutional protection or a procedural disadvantage?
The complaint filed against the then Attorney General automatically activates a key piece of Spanish Procedural Law: special jurisdiction. And that explains why the case is not investigated in an ordinary court, but directly in the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.
Far from being a privilege, special jurisdiction has implications that, in practice, can even be detrimental to the person who holds it—especially when dealing with a position as exposed as the Attorney General.
Why is the Attorney General under the special jurisdiction of the Supreme Court?
Article 57.1 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary expressly includes the Attorney General among the positions whose prosecution falls exclusively to the Supreme Court.
The reason for this design is not personal, but institutional:
- To protect the independence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
- To avoid external pressures in high-impact criminal proceedings.
- To ensure that crimes attributed to the highest state officials are evaluated by the highest-ranking judicial body.
In theory, special jurisdiction seeks to guarantee impartiality, serenity and distance from political and media noise.
Is it really a privilege?
Evidence presented in the Attorney General’s trial
The evidence phase was the core of the trial. There were no recordings, no emails forwarded from the defendant’s account, no direct witness to the leak. Everything revolved around how to interpret the circumstantial evidence, the weight of technical reports, and the credibility of those who testified in court.
The Court heard journalists, prosecutors, UCO agents, and the Attorney General himself. From there, the Chamber built its assessment based, above all, on three blocks: what the witnesses said, what the technical data showed, and how everything fit into a very specific time sequence.
Journalists’ statements: denial of the source
The journalists who published the news testified at the trial. Under oath, they stated:
- that the Attorney General was not their source,
- that the information reached them through «usual sources» from the institutional sphere,
- and that they did not receive the email directly nor access it through irregular channels.
Some even specified:
- the moment they received the information,
- the way it was transmitted to them,
- and that there was already talk of a possible plea agreement before the publication.
The Court takes these statements into account, but integrates them within the overall evidence as denials that, by themselves, are not sufficient to rule out other circumstantial evidence.
«Dissenting opinion of the judgment
Two justices of the Second Chamber, Ana María Ferrer García and Susana Polo García, sign a dissenting opinion that fundamentally departs from the majority. For them, with the evidence that has been presented, the presumption of innocence of the Attorney General has not been overcome.
The journalists were coherent and there was no reason to doubt them
The dissenting opinion gives great relevance to the testimonies of the journalists who testified at trial:
- they categorically denied that the source was the Attorney General,
- they explained how they received the information,
- and they provided details that, according to the dissenting justices, reinforced their credibility.
For them, the fact that the published content coincided with the email does not imply that the leak came from the defendant, because the journalists already had prior information from other sources in the institutional environment.
The circumstantial evidence does not reach the threshold for conviction
The justices accept that one can convict based on circumstantial evidence, but only when the evidence:
- is solid,
- is well connected to each other,
- and leaves no reasonable margin for an alternative explanation.
In this case, they consider that:
- a brief call with a journalist, with unknown content,
- the temporal coincidence between access and publication,
- and the deletion of
Abogado penalista en Madrid (Graduado en Derecho y ADE con Máster de Acceso a la Abogacía), experto en procedimientos complejos y técnicos en Derecho Penal. Cuenta con títulos como el Curso de DerechoPenal Avanzado impartido por magistrados del Tribunal Supremo en el Iltre. Colegio de Abogacía de Madrid.