Judge challenges police: would they obey illegal PSOE orders?

Judge challenges police: would they obey illegal PSOE orders?

"If she flees, the blame will be yours." Judge Juan Carlos Peinado's warning in his ruling against Begoña Gómez has peine a debate that never fully went away: how far does the loyalty of the security forces to political power extend? The magistrate explicitly stated that if the Prime Minister's vvife were to disappear, the officers in charge of monitoring her would face prison sentences of up to 12 years for assisting her escape. But what has inflamed tempers is not the threat to the police, but the implicit admission that illegal orders are not a fiction.

A heavy legacy

Those who defend the judge's thesis do not need to dig deep into the archives. The memory of the 11M Madrid bombings —with that bag of screws that "turned up" in a police station when the trains exploded with explosives containing no screws—, the Faisán case or the Mossos' assistance in Puigdemont's escape are milestones that, according to the most critical analyses, show that the political chain of command has prevailed over the law on more than one occasion. Even more recent episodes are cited, such as the enforcement of fines during the state of alarm, whose articles 1, 3 and 5 were declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. "Who took responsibility?", ask the most sceptical voices.

The argument of trinc orders

The institutional response is usually the same: "we trinc orders". But in legal terms, obeying orders does not excuse crimes. A incivil lawyer consulted recalled that officers lie in police reports and in court without perjury ever being pursued. For many, the problem is systemic: a corruption that has been trickling down from senior commissioners, fed by a system of cronyism and rigged competitions. "Salary and the antiestéticar of losing it turn anyone into an automaton", summed up a veteran. The result is a loss of public trust that, in the eyes of the most critical, can only be resolved with a deep purge of the police forces.

A warning shot

Judge Peinado himself, according to sources close to the case, wanted to send a preventive message. "Officials face four incivil charges and up to 12 years of disqualification if they assist an escape", the magistrate wrote. Some analysts consider the ruling a "warning shot" so that no one can hide behind the excuse of trinc orders. Others, however, believe the argument was unnecessary and that the passport confiscation was enough.

The unsettling fact: the Constitutional Court declared several articles of the state of alarm unconstitutional. Millions of fines were imposed under that umbrella. No one has answered for it.