The Provincial Court of Madrid has reversed the decision by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado to request the Presidency of the Government to deliver all the emails sent and received by Begoña Gómez from her institutional account between 2018 and 2025 and to order their subsequent analysis by the Central Operations Unit of the Guardia Civil. Section 23 of the Madrid Court partially allowed the appeals of both the prosecution and Gómez’s defense, considering that the duty of care agreed by the investigating judge did not correspond to the necessary motivation and did not respect the principles of proportionality, necessity and reasonableness.
The resolution therefore repeals the operative part of the order issued by Peinado on September 3rd. In it, the head of the Investigative Court No. 41 of Madrid agreed to request the General Secretariat of the Regional Council to forward the electronic correspondence of the person under investigation and forward it to the UCO for examination.
The judges direct their criticism at the way the procedure was agreed upon. The Court emphasizes that a measure of this scope, which involves access to electronic communications over a longer period of time, must be adopted by a duly reasoned decision not by mere providenceas happened in this case. According to the court, the investigating judge did not set out the factual and legal reasons justifying the need for the intervention, nor did he present the evidence that would support such an extensive measure over time.
In its argument, Section 23 recalls the constitutional doctrine that requires this type of action to clearly set out the reasons supporting it, the serious offense being investigated, the period involved and the conditions of execution. The lack of this motivation, the order states, makes it difficult to assess whether the care was proportionate and appropriate in view of the purposes pursued by the investigation.
The court therefore agrees to annul the decision “so that an order can be issued in the form of an order with appropriate reasons” without precluding the possibility for the lecturer to reconsider the same procedure if it meets the formal and substantive requirements required by case law.
The court decision details that Peinado had already received a copy of the emails sent and received by Begoña Gómez between July 18, 2018 and September 23, 2025 from the corporate account assigned to her in the Moncloa complex. This documentation was sent to the court on a USB drive following a letter from the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Government, to which a report from the Department of Information and Communication Technologies was attached.
Although the judge had this material, he agreed in his order of November 2nd Send the emails to the UCO for analysis. According to the assessment of the resources of the prosecution and the defense, it is precisely this chain of decisions that is now invalid, as the court assumes that the need for a police review of all electronic communications over more than seven years has not been adequately justified.
The origin of the duty of care goes back to the beginning of August, when the judge visited the government office to clarify whether the president’s wife had an official email with institutional domain. When asked about popular allegations, Peinado then reflected “useful and relevant” to know the presence of an account that could have been used by the person under investigation in connection with the events analyzed in the case.
In this case, the judge attributes the possible commission of crimes to Begoña Gómez Embezzlement, influence peddling, corporate corruption, embezzlement and burglary. The Regional Court does not assess the merits of these allegations or the material relevance of the proceedings, but limits its analysis to the way in which it was agreed and to the lack of sufficient justification in the original decision.
Last June, Peinado asked the Supreme Court to indict Justice Minister Félix Bolaños over the hiring of Cristina Álvarez in 2018, when he held the position of Secretary General of the Presidency of the Government. The Supreme Court rejected the request in July on these grounds there is no sufficient accusation individualized.
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