What will Juan Carlos I do with his partial victory in London that has given him the protection of immunity before the facts denounced by his ex-lover Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (alleged harassment with tickets, in May-June 2012, at their homes in London, Monaco and Switzerland)? Will you consider visiting Madrid on the occasion, for example, of your 85th birthday?on January 5, 2023, the third to be exiled in the United Arab Emirates, where he has settled since August 4, 2020?
The Court of Appeal of the High Court of England and Wales has given him the protection of immunity that he asked for when he won his Appeal Against Judge Matthew Nicklin that had been denied in his judgment of March 24, 2022.
But it’s a pyrrhic triumph that he has not even led his lawyers to throw the bells into flight. The English law firm Carter Ruck underlines in a statement a point that is not in debate, namely that the sentence of last Tuesday, December 6, states that Her Majesty “emphasizedly denies that she has been involved in or directed any harassment [a Corinna] and rejects their accusations as untrue.”
But this is always said. The plaintiff accuses and the defendant denies the charges. Because the substance of the facts is not being debated, but the form or jurisdiction. In this case immunity. Noting that the court clarifies, after describing the terrible alleged facts of the persecution and harassment, that the Emeritus emphatically denies the facts, is the typical formalism that is usually done.
It is that the harassment behaviors have not begun to be examined by Judge Nicklin precisely because of the appeal of Juan Carlos I, which may be the first of several, in terms of previous issues. Immunity 2012- June 18, 2014 (abdication) has been the first. But two others will follow: the request for declination of jurisdiction based, argues the defense of the Emeritus, on the “friendship” of the United Kingdom with Spain, so that the harassment can be prosecuted in Spanish courts, on the one hand; and the challenge to the way Corinna’s lawyers communicated the lawsuit on December 29, 2020.
That is to say: by WhatsApp to the mobile phone of the Emeritus, already installed in Abu Dhabi, a device once very frequented by calls between Juan Carlos I and Corinna.
Acts attributed to the State
With regard to immunity, the Court’s argument is that no matter how abusive or illegal the monitoring of the agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), assigned by the General Felix Sanz Roldan to monitor Corinna (and the entry into her homes in the United Kingdom, Monaco and Switzerland), these actions were part of acts of State.
“A solid State can act through individuals, whether employees or agents of the State” indicates the sentence of December 6 last.
And he emphasizes: “Where that person acts in an apparently official capacity or under the color of authority, the shares in question will be attributed to the State. State immunity in respect of these persons is fundamental to the principle of State immunity.”
According to the three judges of the Court, “the alleged conduct in this case includes covert surveillance operations, which is the classic mission of a State intelligence service. There is nothing in the original lawsuit to support the conclusion that it was the simple friendship between the director of the CNI and Juan Carlos I which allowed the latter to achieve the covert operations and others that he realizes”
Therefore, if the harassment were to be proven with evidence – which Judge Nicklin must examine – it does not matter. Because it would have been an official State act, executed under the “color of authority.” In this case, he was the sovereign head of state (Juan Carlos I) and the director of the CNI (Sanz Roldán).
preparing the return
This immunity will not be appealed, although it could be, before the Supreme Court, because Corinna’s lawyers want to enter the evidence and to a possible trial once the other two previous issues mentioned are overcome.
But there are not few lawyers in London for whom there are sound grounds for an appeal.
“The normal rule is that the head of state is immune only when he exercises his authority in acts of state, inherent to his function. Is sending a spy or several to Corinna’s homes an inherent act of the Government? That has not been addressed. And they have been wrong,” a relevant legal source in the United Kingdom told EL PERIÓDICO, who prefers to keep his name confidential. “But since the sentence is not going to be appealed before the Supreme Court, we will be left with this erroneous decision,” he added. in a conversation after hearing the sentence.
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With this Pirro-style victory that should not be mentioned, on the other hand, it would not be improbable that the head of the House of His Majesty King Felipe VI, Jaime de Alfonsin, give the future of Juan Carlos I a spin again. Continue to keep him 8,000 kilometers from Madrid? How to prepare the return considering that the procedure in London is going to extend for long months?
That is, take advantage of the disposition of your host, friend Mohamed bin Zayed Al NahayanPresident of the United Arab Emirates, and that he continue to reside on the paradisiacal island of Nurai, twenty-odd kilometers from Abu Dhabi, and work on his return, first with intermittent trips, as the health of the exile allows.