García Castellón shows Sánchez how to fight a lie in democracy

Three days after the presentation of Sánchez's "Gag Plan", a former judge has brought it to the ground with a lawsuit.

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The government and its media outlets have been insisting on the need for exceptional measures to combat "hoaxes", an expression they systematically use to refer to truthful journalistic information about corruption cases affecting the socialists, and specifically Pedro Sánchez's personal entourage. Obviously, the government does not intend to combat any hoaxes, but to ensure impunity. In fact, if the government considered that what these media published was false, there are already legal mechanisms to penalize harmful lies.

Today, former National Court judge Manuel García Castellón sued Podemos leader Ione Belarra, after the far-left MP accused him of corruption and prevarication in a message on Twitter. García Castellón has never been convicted of corruption or prevarication, so Belarra has a good chance of being convicted in this trial.

It is curious to note that the person sued is a former minister of the Sánchez government. This is not an isolated case. Let us remember that in November 2023, the then minister and also leader of Podemos Irene Montero was convicted of falsely accusing an innocent man of being an "abuser". It is worth remembering that Sánchez, who now pretends to be concerned about the "hoaxes", did not say anything about that conviction nor did he dismiss the then minister for that judicial conviction for accusing someone of a crime that he did not commit.

The lawsuit filed today by García Castellón shows Sánchez how to combat lies in a democracy: through Justice, which is the channel that every democratic country has to resolve conflicts of rights between citizens. In this case, two rights are affected: freedom of speech and the right to honor. Obviously, freedom of speech has limits and does not cover defamation or slander, but to put a stop to these excesses we already have the judicial system, without the need for any authoritarian ruler to use hoaxes as an excuse to subjugate journalists.

Obviously, a lawsuit is a cumbersome and lengthy procedure, but it must be that way to avoid abuses, both those that may be committed by the person being sued and those that may be committed by the plaintiff by improperly using that procedure.

I don't have to go far to find an example of the latter: In 2013, the courts dismissed a lawsuit filed by the far-left newspaper Público against this blog, a lawsuit filed against an article in which it criticized that newspaper. Público sued me for using expressions that are common in that newspaper against its rivals, something that the courts pointed out in the sentence, which established that my article "does not constitute an intrusion into the honour of the plaintiff editor, but that the exercise of freedom of speech that it contains must be considered to be prevalent."

This is how rights conflicts are resolved in a democracy, and not as Sánchez intends. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if, instead of having to resort to the judicial system, this ultra-left newspaper had appealed to a censoring body dependent on a government that this newspaper has been supporting for years.

That is why in a democracy we need a well-equipped judiciary (something we do not have today) and independent judges, something that Sánchez is trying to liquidate. It is not democracy that Sánchez is trying to protect, but his wife, his party and his government against any truthful information published by independent media pointing out alleged cases of corruption.

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Photo: Europa Press.