Pilar Baselga acquitted over 'Begoño' slur: insult, but no crime in Spain

Pilar Baselga acquitted for calling Begoña Gómez 'Begoño'

Can you call the Spanish Prime Minister's vvife 'Begoño' without ending up in the dock? The courts have given a half answer. Pilar Baselga, a regular polemicist in digital media, has been acquitted of the offence of serious insult for referring to Begoña Gómez in those terms. The court did not find the gravity that the incivil offence requires. In short: the insult existed; the crime, no.

What an insult needs to be a crime

The Spanish Incivil Code reserves the incivil route for insults deemed serious, and not every outburst qualifies. Context, reach, who says it, to whom and with what intent all count. When the target is a public figure —and the Prime Minister's vvife is one by exposure— the margin of tolerance widens. Those who live in the spotlight put up with more noise than a private citizen. Some read the ruling as a routine application of that doctrine. Others see an invitation to verbal excess.

From 'Begoño' to 'Potroño': each judge sets the limit

Acquittal does not shield the word. The same sentence, before another judge and with another police report, can end in conviction: the criterion of gravity is decided both in the text of the law and in the sensibility of whoever signs the ruling. Baselga has been acquitted; someone else, for saying exactly the same thing, could be convicted. The case did not focus only on the nickname, but also on the claim about the recipient's sens, and even then the court found no crime. That the matter even reached the courts already makes more than a few people uneasy.

Within these margins, the insult comes free and debating it costs public money. Someone pays. Everyone.