In a statement issued on Tuesday, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) said it was worried by remarks from senior figures in State institutions that question the independence and the lawfulness of particular court actions.
The Council said the defence of constitutional principles, judicial independence and the right to a defence were pillars of the rule of law. It warned that an atmosphere of this kind undermined the foundations of an advanced democratic society.
The text was signed by the Council’s standing committee, chaired by Isabel Perelló, who has presided over both the CGPJ and the Supreme Court since September 2024.
Although the Council did not name anyone, the protest followed a run of court cases touching people close to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Some on the government side have described the judicial pressure as a “soft coup”.
The most prominent case involves Begoña Gómez, the prime minister’s wife. She was indicted in April on suspicion of influence peddling, corruption and misuse of public funds, and is due at a preliminary hearing on June 9. She denies wrongdoing.
Sánchez’s brother, David Sánchez, and former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero have also been drawn into separate inquiries.
In a further blow, the Supreme Court in November 2025 convicted the then attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, of disclosing confidential information about the partner of Madrid regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso. He was banned from office for two years and fined €7,200, and resigned days later. Sánchez had defended him throughout the trial.
The latest flashpoint is an inquiry by investigating judge Santiago Pedraz into an alleged scheme, said to have been run from the Madrid headquarters of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in Ferraz, to obstruct investigations into the party and the government.
Officers from the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) searched the PSOE headquarters for more than 15 hours.
The PSOE national spokeswoman, Montse Mínguez, said on Monday that the party was not “afraid of justice”. She said it would take no further action until the secrecy order on the case was lifted.
She complained of a “double standard”, arguing that investigations damaging the PSOE moved faster than those affecting the opposition, conservative People’s Party (PP).
The Justice Ministry, led by Félix Bolaños, had delayed for four days the notification of the case file to the parties, even though Pedraz had authorised its partial release.
The dispute matters beyond Spain because judicial independence sits at the centre of the rule of law, which the EU monitors across all member states.
The European Commission has repeatedly flagged the CGPJ in its annual rule-of-law reports. The Council’s renewal was blocked between 2018 and 2024, amid a standoff between the two main parties over appointments, and a deal was reached only after Commission mediation.
The Commission has also urged Spain to change how the Council’s judge members are chosen, in line with European standards.
For now the row shows no sign of cooling. Gómez is due in court next week, the secrecy order on the Ferraz inquiry has yet to be lifted, and neither side has stepped back, leaving the relationship between the Spanish Government and the judiciary unusually raw.
