Who is Beatriz Biedma, the judge of the David Sánchez case who will testify in the National Court

The president of the Tribunal de Instancia is an internal governance figure of the new judicial organization planned in Spain, designed to coordinate and direct the functioning of all the courts integrated into that Tribunal (civil, criminal, administrative-contentious, social, etc.) within a specific judicial district or jurisdiction. Essentially, they are not "just another judge," but the single-person body that assumes the direction, representation, and supervision of the Tribunal de Instancia as a whole.

Their competencies and functions can be grouped into several blocks:

1. Direction and organization of the Tribunal

• Direction of the body: exercises the leadership of the Tribunal de Instancia, setting the general lines of internal operation and ensuring that the different courts and sections act in a coordinated manner.
• Organization of sections and services: participates in the delimitation and organization of the Tribunal's sections (for example, civil, criminal, family, commercial sections, etc.), as well as in the assignment of judges and magistrates to each, within the limits set by the Organic Law of the Judiciary and the agreements of the judicial governing bodies.
• Distribution and allocation of cases: supervises the objective criteria for the distribution of cases among the different units or sections of the Tribunal, ensuring they are correctly applied and avoiding manipulations or ad hoc designations.
• Coordination of personnel: although the administrative dependency of civil servants falls on other bodies, the president coordinates with the Government Secretariat and the legal advisors of the Administration of Justice the provision and organization of the human resources necessary for the proper functioning of the Tribunal.

2. Institutional representation and external relations

• Representation of the Tribunal: acts as the highest representative of the Tribunal de Instancia before other judicial bodies, the High Court of Justice of the autonomous community, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), public administrations, and the public.
• Relationship with professional associations and legal operators: is a regular interlocutor with bar associations, court clerks, social graduates, the prosecution, and other legal operators when general organizational or operational issues of the Tribunal are discussed.
• Participation in governing bodies: may be part, by reason of their position, of coordination or internal governance bodies of the jurisdiction at the territorial level (for example, meetings convened by the Governing Chamber of the High Court of Justice) where workloads, needs, and improvement plans are analyzed.

3. Promotion, control, and quality of judicial activity

• Promotion of judicial activity: without invading the independence of each judge in resolving cases, the president ensures that the Tribunal as a whole functions efficiently, that delays are reduced, and that quality objectives and reasonable deadlines are met.
• Supervision of compliance with schedules and services: controls that on-call services, hearings, and trials are properly scheduled, especially in jurisdictions with high workloads (criminal, gender violence, family, etc.).
• Detection of dysfunctions: identifies bottlenecks, workload imbalances between sections, or organizational problems, and proposes corrective measures (reinforcements, redistributions, changes in allocation) before the Governing Chamber of the High Court of Justice or the CGPJ.
• Statistics and accountability: coordinates the preparation of statistical data on case intake and resolution, response times, and pending cases, which are sent to the judicial governing bodies for system planning and evaluation.

4. Functions regarding judicial personnel

• Reception and coordination of judges: integrates newly assigned, substitute, or reinforcement judges into the Tribunal's functioning, guiding them on distribution criteria, internal practices, and coordination with other sections.
• Reports and proposals: issues reports on the need for positions, the convenience of reinforcements or creation of new sections, as well as on possible internal reorganizations, which are submitted to the CGPJ or the Ministry of Justice.
• Guarantee of independence: although exercising governance functions, must scrupulously respect the judicial independence of each body when judging and enforcing judgments. Their organizational decisions cannot interfere with the content of rulings.

5. Transparency and attention to the public

• Public image of the Tribunal: contributes to making the Tribunal's functioning understandable and predictable for the public and professionals, promoting clear information about schedules, services, and organizational criteria.
• Management of complaints and suggestions: may receive, channel, or supervise the processing of complaints related to the Tribunal's functioning (not about the content of rulings, which have their own appeals) and propose organizational improvements.

In summary, the president of the Tribunal de Instancia acts as the "conductor" of all the courts that comprise it: organizing, coordinating, and representing, promoting activity, and ensuring that the public justice service is provided efficiently and with respect for judicial independence.

In the Spanish criminal process, the private prosecution is exercised by the person directly offended or harmed by the crime (or their representative). If the person wishing to act as prosecution is a judge, essentially the same general requirements apply, with a fundamental nuance: the obligation of impartiality and incompatibility, which prevents them from judging the case in which they are the accusing party.

1. Legitimacy: being offended or harmed by the crime

The basic requirement is active legitimacy:

• They must be the direct victim of the crime (offended party) or a person who has suffered harm derived from it (harmed party).
• In case of death or incapacity of the victim, their heirs or legal representatives may exercise the private prosecution.
• If the judge wishing to appear has been a victim themselves (for example, threats, insults, assault against authority, crimes against their integrity), they may act as private prosecution in that proceeding.

Being a judge does not confer legitimacy to prosecute by itself: if they are not a victim or harmed party, they could only intervene, if applicable, through the popular prosecution (which has different rules) or not intervene at all.

2. Capacity and procedural representation

Like any party, the private prosecution must meet the general procedural capacity requirements:

• Be of legal age and have full capacity to act. If a minor or incapacitated, they must act through a legal representative.
• Appear in the process with a court clerk and assisted by a lawyer when the law requires it (in practice, almost always, except in very minor cases or very initial preliminary proceedings).
• If the judge acts as a natural person victim, they do not intervene “on behalf of the judicial body,” but strictly in a personal capacity.

3. Formal exercise: complaint or appearance document

To be admitted as private prosecution, the interested party must:

• File a complaint (when initiating the proceeding) or an appearance document in already opened proceedings.
• In that document they must:
  • Identify themselves as offended or harmed party.
  • Describe sufficiently the facts constituting the crime and their relation to them.
  • Expressly request to be considered as private prosecution.

The judicial body will assess if these requirements are met and will issue an order admitting or rejecting the appearance as private prosecution.

4. Bond or other financial burdens

Traditionally, the private prosecution could be subject to the obligation to provide a bond to cover costs and liabilities if their action was reckless. Although the regime has been relaxed (especially for victims of certain crimes), the investigating judge may still:

• Require a bond if they perceive a risk of abusive or reckless action.
• Or exempt it when the victim is in a situation of special protection (for example, gender violence or other serious crimes).

5. Procedural moment to appear

The private prosecution may request admission from the initiation of the proceeding and, in general, until before the start of the oral trial. If they try to appear once the trial has begun, the court usually rejects it for affecting equality of arms and the accused's right to defense.

6. Special considerations when the accuser is a judge

In addition to the above requirements, the fact that the accuser is a judge adds a key demand:

• The judge acting as private prosecution in a case cannot, at the same time, hear or resolve that proceeding as a judicial body.
• If they were competent to hear the case, they must abstain and, if applicable, the other parties could promote their recusal to safeguard impartiality.
• Therefore, the judge victim acts as a private party before another judicial body that is hierarchically or territorially competent.

In summary, a judge can be admitted as private prosecution as long as they meet the general conditions (being a victim or harmed party, formalizing their appearance with lawyer and court clerk, within the deadline) and strictly respect the rules of impartiality and incompatibility, that is, without intervening as a judge in the same proceeding in which they accuse.

In recent years, the Audiencia Nacional has begun to address more explicitly the organized campaigns of discredit and pressure against judges and other legal operators. With the available information, the two main focuses that have been judicialized in the Audiencia Nacional itself are, above all, the “Leire Díez case” and the macro-case against former judge Fernando Presencia, to which some related lines of investigation are added.

1. The Leire Díez network (“PSOE plumber”)

The clearest proceeding is the one known as the Leire Díez case, which has ended up concentrated entirely in the Central Investigative Court No. 5, under Judge Santiago Pedraz. The Audiencia Nacional is investigating here an alleged criminal organization that would have tried, among other things, to:

• Obtain sensitive information about judges, prosecutors, and Civil Guard commanders involved in cases relevant to the PSOE and the Government.
• Destabilize or “sabotage” judicial proceedings affecting the party, combining leaks, media campaigns, and procedural maneuvers, according to orders cited by media such as Demócrata.
• Organize personal and professional discredit campaigns against specific magistrates.

Among those investigated in this case are, among others, Leire Díez herself, former PSOE Secretary of Organization Santos Cerdán, former Andalusian Vice President Gaspar Zarrías, and businessman Javier Pérez Dolset, with a range of alleged crimes including criminal organization, bribery, disclosure of secrets, inducement to false testimony, false accusation, prevarication, influence peddling, and crimes against State institutions.

Within this general framework, the AN has incorporated pieces very directly linked to the discredit of specific judges:

• Campaign against Judge Beatriz Biedma (investigator of the David Sánchez case, brother of the Prime Minister). The magistrate has requested to appear as private prosecution in the AN proceeding and denounces an “organized discredit campaign” against her, which would include surveillance, gathering information about her family environment, and promoting complaints to try to remove her from the case. Various media (for example, Demócrata and general newspapers) even point to contacts with drug trafficking clans to intensify that pressure.
• Interest in Judge Mercedes Alaya. A UCO report collected by the AN points to attempts by the alleged network to gather “compromising” information about Mercedes Alaya, investigator of cases such as the ERE or Aznalcóllar, with the aim of having material that could damage her reputation or condition her actions (Demócrata).

Overall, the Leire Díez case is today the most extensive and systematic example of investigation in the Audiencia Nacional about a network that, besides other corrupt purposes, would have organized defamation and harassment campaigns against active judges.

2. The case against former judge Fernando Presencia and his environment

Another relevant front is the investigation into former magistrate Fernando Presencia. According to elDiario.es, the Audiencia Nacional is investigating whether Presencia, expelled from the judiciary for several prevarication convictions, led an “association of corruption whistleblowers” that actually functioned as:

• A network dedicated to the mass filing of false complaints and lawsuits against judges, prosecutors, and public officials, often based only on rumors and fabricated documents.
• A machinery for spreading fake news and conspiracy theories, through internet channels close to the so-called “Royuela file,” attributing to magistrates like Manuel Marchena alleged accounts in tax havens or other imaginary crimes.

Several of these collaborators are already indicted in the Audiencia Nacional case for participating in the creation and propagation of these defamation campaigns. The Supreme Court, for its part, has imposed financial sanctions on some of them for false accusations against magistrates, but the structural criminal investigation of the network falls to the AN, precisely because of the widespread impact on the judiciary and high State officials.

3. Other pressure and discredit dynamics reflected in the Audiencia Nacional

Besides these two cores, there are AN investigations that do not focus exclusively on harassment of judges but where elements of discredit campaigns appear in the background:

• The case about the “dirty war” against Podemos, also in the hands of Judge Pedraz (El País), documents how, from the Ministry of the Interior of the Rajoy Government, police investigations without judicial coverage and leaks aimed at manufacturing media scandals were promoted. Here the main targets were political leaders, but the pattern of using “secret” reports and leaks illustrates the same logic of instrumentalizing criminal information for public discredit campaigns.

In summary, to date the two main “typical cases” in which the Audiencia Nacional has fully engaged in investigating coordinated campaigns of discredit, defamation, or pressure against judges are the Leire Díez case (with various branches against magistrates like Biedma and Alaya) and the macro-case around Fernando Presencia and his network of complaints and rumors against judges and prosecutors. Other investigations, such as the dirty war against Podemos, complete the picture of how these strategies have been judicialized in the AN in recent years.