The espionage carried out by Spain's National Intelligence Centre (CNI) on lawyer Gonzalo Boye, with the Pegasus system, has ended up colliding with the legal proceedings in which the lawyer was acting while he was being monitored. The reason is that the same judge who authorized the hacking of his phone with the spyware, Pablo Lucas Murillo de la Cueva, participated in cases against some of Boye's clients. The lawyer has now launched a battery of appeals to the Supreme Court to demand that the court rulings in which the judge took part be overturned by the state of defencelessness before the law in which his clients found themselves. The cases concerned are several that affect Catalan presidents Carles Puigdemont and Quim Torra, and MEPs Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
In his submission to the court, Boye summarizes the conclusions of the Spanish Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, of May 18th, 2022, in which he confirms that Pablo Lucas was responsible for authorizing the espionage "illegally", which had a "devastating effect" on his clients' right to a defence. The lawyer argues that the Ombudsman's report found "a high degree of detail in the information available to the Supreme Court judge in order to make a decision on whether or not to authorize" the use of the spyware. He alleges that the judge had this high degree of information about his communications at the same time that he was part of the court ruling against his clients, which would have placed them in a situation of legal defenceless, breaching lawyer-client communications.
Devastating
"This has had a devastating effect on the right to a defence of the appellants, who suffered an effective situation of material helplessness in this process, as a result of the undoubtedly illicit activities of judge Pablo Lucas Murillo de la Cueva, inappropriate for "a judge in a democratic rule of law," said Boye.
All this, he asserted, led to a violation of fundamental rights which has come to light after the sentencing decision. "In short, there has been a situation that is clearly forbidden in any democratic state governed by the rule of law, which is clearly contrary to the right to effective judicial protection without defencelessness, as well as due process, in relation to the right to privacy, as well as to equality without discrimination on political or ideological grounds, all of which are irreparably damaged by this process," said the lawyer.
Boye denounces that Lucas, while acting in these proceedings, had access to all his communications as a lawyer with his clients, something without parallels in any democracy under rule of law and which led to a situation of absolute defencelessness.
Overall, he claims that the cases should be anulled and that the violation of the fundamental rights must be recognized. He also asks that, in the event that the claim he is making is not directly admitted, the Supreme Court raise a preliminary question on this issue with the European Court of Justice. Finally, he demands that judge Lucas provide all the authorizations he issued to spy on Boye as well as the other people affected by these proceedings, along with all the documentation that led the Ombudsman to conclude that Lucas had a "high degree of detail" in the information.
The incidents processed by Boye affect the court decision to reject two administrative disputes appeals by Puigdemont and Comín against agreements by the Central Electoral Commission; four appeals by president Torra against the same electoral body; as well as appeals from Clara Ponsatí.
Below, two more of the appeals sent by Boye to the Supreme Court.