The Supreme Court emphasized that, although other journalists claimed to have knowledge of the email that Alberto González Amador’s lawyer sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in front of Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz, this fact does not change the judges’ conviction about the criminal liability of the head of the State Ministry nor their view of the facts. As Europa Press reported, the Supreme Court ruling emphasized that while the credibility of the journalists was recognized and their statements were considered informative, the statements were not enough to clear García Ortiz of the crime of disclosing secrets.
The Supreme Court ruling, published on Tuesday and detailed by Europa Press, found that the lack of an alternative explanation that would explain how the leak occurred was undeniable. The judges considered it irrefutable that the leak took place in the Attorney General’s Office and that there was direct involvement of García Ortiz, which allowed the Cadena SER journalist to obtain the email sent by González Amador’s lawyer on February 2, 2024. This information came during negotiations between the businessman’s defense and the prosecution, in which González Amador had to admit to two tax crimes in return to avoid prison.
Although the informants’ versions claimed to have had access to the email through sources other than García Ortiz, according to the court order, this fact was neither counted among the proven facts nor did it lead to changes in the criminal classification that was the subject of the proceedings. The 180-page text insisted that at no time was the credibility of the journalists’ statements in question, but that their contribution to evidence did not result in García Ortiz being cleared of criminal responsibility, Europa Press reported.
The Supreme Court explained, as published by Europa Press, that the confidential nature of the information involved in the case is not lost simply by the fact that it is known to third parties. The court emphasized the obligation of the public prosecutor’s office, and in particular its senior person, to exercise strict control over the correct handling of the confidential information in its possession. According to the judges, this increased duty of confidentiality requires extreme caution when dealing with confidential documents, especially communications that could concern possible pacts or legal agreements.
In the same resolution, the court analyzed the role of journalistic professional secrecy during the trial. The justices recognized the complexity of balancing journalists’ constitutional obligation to maintain the anonymity of their sources and the need for a trial to establish the facts. Europa Press reported that the judges found that professional secrecy overshadowed the entire proceedings and determined the position of those who appeared as witnesses. The court emphasized that the journalists’ answers, protected by this constitutional right, had not lost their truthfulness despite the refusal to disclose the sources, and assessed them with the conviction that this constitutional protection is essential and also protects statements that do not fully correspond to reality if this is necessary to guarantee the anonymity of the source.
According to the Supreme Court and reports from Europa Press, the right of whistleblowers not to identify their sources is protected by the constitution. “If there were an obligation to disclose sources, they would be blinded by fear of reprisals. Anyone who cites their sources dries them up. The flow of information, which is necessary in a democratic society, the cornerstone of which is the free press, would atrophy to an unsustainable extent,” the court warned in its decision.
The ruling document contained a special section in which the judges emphasized that journalistic secrecy allowed not only the secrecy of the informant’s name, but also the failure to respond through channels, circumstances or information that could directly or indirectly identify him. “It is unconstitutional to compel the journalist to disclose any of these circumstances, even if the court or the interviewee has reasonable certainty that they are harmless for the purposes of disclosure to the source (the assessment rests solely with the journalist); moreover, it would require him to show his communication,” the judges clarified, as published by Europa Press.
At the hearing, several reporters specifically drew attention to their constitutional right to confidentiality of sources. One of the most notable statements was that of elDiario.es journalist José Precedo, who stated that García Ortiz was “innocent” because he knew he was not the source of the leak. Europa Press noted that the court valued this statement, but concluded that its contribution, although relevant, was not enough to distance the Attorney General from authorship in the disclosure of confidential data. In addition, the judges compared García Ortiz’s actions to those of Precedo, emphasizing that Precedo chose not to publish the verbatim contents of the February 2 email, whether out of respect for the source or due to an editorial decision, and appreciated the contrast between the journalist’s caution and García Ortiz’s promptness in facilitating the dissemination of confidential material.
The Supreme Court concluded the ruling by imposing a two-year disqualification for García Ortiz from the office of Attorney General, a fine of 7,200 euros and the payment of 10,000 euros in compensation to Alberto González Amador for moral damage, Europa Press reported. The resolution confirmed García Ortiz’s criminal liability for the email leak and highlighted that, while the press retains its constitutional right to professional secrecy, this protection does not exclude the relevance of the institutional obligations burdening those responsible for the custody of confidential information.
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