Spain is not a dictatorship: the cases putting that claim to the test

The Spanish dictatorship narrative lands at the Public Prosecutor's Office

Spain is not a dictatorship. Anyone who has loudly insulted a public official and gone home without handcuffs knows it. The uncomfortable part is not that obvious truth, but that it increasingly needs to be invoked: the institutional response to political criticism is increasingly channeled through the courts, and that turns democracy into something that has to be defended in the courtroom.

The most cited case has proper names attached. Llanos Massó (Vox), speaker of the Valencian parliament (Corts Valencianes), referred to the Prime Minister on social media as a 'corrupt mafia boss'. The PSPV, the Socialist Party of the Valencian Community, filed a slander complaint. The same politician is also credited with another outburst, this time about the appointment of a minister — who, in her mockery, did not know what an ERTE (Spain's temporary layoff scheme) was — as candidate to head the International Labour Organization.

From slander to court file

The mechanism works in every direction. Compromís took statements by Vox politician Figaredo to the Public Prosecutor's Office in which, according to the complaint, he allegedly called to 'hunt' and 'fish' migrants who had arrived in Ceuta. A speech the complainant described as fascist. On the other side, there was no shortage of people demanding that the accusations against the Prime Minister not go unpunished before the Prosecutor's Office.

There lies the knot. When insults are pursued in court, is the institution being protected or is the perimeter of what can be said being narrowed? The full file, with the timeline of each complaint and who it targets, is more eloquent than the headline the news bulletins summarize.

The tyranny argument and its flip side

Two narratives cross paths without touching. One holds that respect for those who think differently is the constitutional foundation and that normalizing contempt is the gateway to something worse. The other replies that the best proof there is no dictatorship is that the insult still exists, and that prosecuting it is precisely how transitions toward tyranny begin. So far, no one is demanding any proof other than the usual one.

It is worth not losing sight of the elementary. In a dictatorship there is no debate over whether it is a dictatorship. It just is. When the matter becomes material for prosecutors, complaints and counter-interpretations, what there is, is a political conflict wrapped in legal packaging.

The 2007 jewels and a clock that does not tick

The judicial record adds its own piece. On television it was argued that the origin of the jewels at the center of the controversy was a gift dated June 19, 2007, and that the case is 'long past the statute of limitations'. The argument serves to defuse the charges and, along the way, to demand that a lie not become truth no matter how often it is repeated. The date is the only thing nobody disputes.

None of this ends with a single complaint. If the trend continues — and there are no signs the judicial drip will stop — the likely outcome is that the next insult to a public official will also end up before the Prosecutor's Office and that the next report on tyrannies will be signed by someone in a robe. Although, at this point, any prediction on this matter is about as reliable as a poll two years ahead.